The University of Portland’s 54th Annual Jazz Festival takes place April 11 and 12 as bands from all over the region come together to perform and express their love of jazz music.
The festival showcases excellent student musicians as well as guest artists from around the nation, all contributing to a vibrant festival of jazz and the celebration of music performance and education on campus. Since it began, the Festival has grown in size every year, becoming known as a premier student jazz event in the Pacific Northwest.
For the first time in the 54 years of the Jazz Festival at UP, students will participate in an Oregon Music Educators Association (OMEA) Jazz Festival, which is a qualifier for state championships here at UP. Throughout the two days, there will be twenty-two middle school and high school bands performing, each band consisting of sixteen to eighteen musicians. In addition to this, the UP Jazz Ensemble will perform both days.
This year’s featured artist is trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, who was born in Vancouver and raised in Nanaimo, British Columbia. She graduated from Berklee College of Music. She has appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” performed with Grammy winner Terri-Lyne Carrington, and recorded with Sarah McLachlan. On top of all this, she also leads her own quintet, quartet, and organ trio.
For more information contact performing and fine arts at x7228 or pfa@up.edu.
The next Music at Midweek performance will feature music students on Wednesday, March 28, 12:30 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Recital Hall. It is free and open to all. Student performers will be Kay Smith, clarinet; Luke McCartney, guitar; and Natalie Werner, mezzo-soprano.
The next Music at Midweek will feature student musical performances on Wednesday, March 21, at 12:30 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Recital Hall. The event is free and all are welcome. Performers will include Thomas Curran, baritone; Mike Cleary, bass; David Rodgers, bassoon; Alissa Henderson, soprano; and Nicolai Bajanov, piano.
Faculty and staff are invited to a welcome reception for comedy playwright Emilio Williams on Friday, March 23, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., in the lobby of Mago Hunt Center. The reception is generously supported by the Beckman Humor Project. Williams is an international playwright who hails from Spain, calls Chicago home, and is a writing fellow pursuing a master of fine arts at the Art Institute of Chicago. Known for his plays Smartphones, Your Problem With Men, and Medea’s Got Some Issues, Williams is writing and teaching in residence at the University of Portland. This week he will teach a theater course and a fine arts course, record a podcast with Lora Looney, performing and fine arts, on teaching comedy, and will conduct an extensive script-writing workshop with sixteen students enrolled in the course Nation & Identity in Spanish Theater, 1788-1931, completely in Spanish.
The next Music at Midweek features the opera “Angel of the Amazon,” written by Evan Mack, the story of Sr. Dorothy Stang, a nun from Ohio who worked with the poor for 40 years. On February 12, 2005, at the age of 73, she was murdered-by-hire for her works as she recited the beatitudes in prayer. This performance is sponsored by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Music at Midweek takes place on Wednesday, February 28, at 12:30 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Recital Hall, and is free and open to all. (Image courtesy Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.)
The University of Portland Orchestra presents “Cinematic Symphony: A Night at the Movies,” featuring orchestral music from “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Apollo 13,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and more, on Tuesday, February 27, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. The concert is free and open to all. Come relive some of your favorite films through the music that defined them!
The performing and fine arts department will present the play Eurydice, by Sarah Ruhl, from February 28-March 4, at 7:30 p.m. (2 p.m. Sunday), in Mago Hunt Center Theater. Eurydice is a 2003 play which retells the myth of Orpheus from the perspective of Eurydice, his wife, who must choose to return to earth with Orpheus or to stay in the underworld with her father, a character created by Ruhl.
The annual PDX Jazz Festival will take place on Monday, February 19, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. The festival will feature the Bobby Torres Ensemble and the UP Jazz Octet. The 
The Women’s Chorale, directed by Kathryn Briggs, will perform an intriguing program of vocal jazz/pop a cappella selections along with traditional choral literature on Sunday, February 18, at 1 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. The University Singers, directed by Michael Connolly, with student conducting associate Lupita Zamora-Resendiz ’18, will also perform a variety of choral favorites. Free and open to all.
The next Music at Midweek performance will feature a jazz quartet with David Phy, trombone, who will play and present a master class with a UP trombone student. The performance takes place on Wednesday, February 14, at 12:30 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Recital Hall. Free and open to all.