Arts & Media❯Books❯Author Talks

This fall, Portland welcomes an extraordinary celebration of classical ballet as PRIMA Ballet Gala brings together artists of the Grand Kyiv Ballet and international guest performers for one unforgettable night.

More than a performance, PRIMA Ballet Gala is a night of elevated artistry – where timeless classics meet contemporary expression, and the stage becomes a space of beauty, power, and emotion.

The program features iconic highlights from world-renowned ballets including Don Quixote, Spartacus, and The Dying Swan, alongside vibrant national dance such as the thrilling Hopak, set to music by legendary composers including Tchaikovsky.

Begin your evening on the red carpet, then step inside for a celebration of artistic excellence and international cultural connection.
Guests are warmly encouraged to attend in the evening attire, helping create an atmosphere of elegance worthy of this special occasion.

Join us for a rare opportunity to experience world-class dancers, timeless choreography, and a night filled with beauty and inspiration.

Seats are limited. Be part of PRIMA Ballet Gala — where ballet speaks from the heart.

Norman Huynh, Conductor
Steiger Butte Drum and Singers, Native American ensemble
Members of Portland State University Chamber Choir, Ethan Sperry, Conductor
Oregon Symphony

STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Michael GORDON Natural History
Grace MIEDZIAK New work (Fear No Music Emerging Composers Fellow, Oregon Symphony commission)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

Inspired by Crater Lake National Park, Michael Gordon’s Natural History weaves Native and symphonic music in this paean to the natural landscape. Plus, hear works by two of classical music’s most intrepid pioneers: Stravinsky’s experimental musical essay on wind and brass sounds, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Beethoven’s vivacious and dramatic Symphony No. 1. Native Oregonian Grace Miedziak enhances the program with a new work that celebrates the Pacific Northwest.

On Sunday, November 1st, Oregon Koto-Kai, the Japanese Koto Music Society of Oregon, will present its 15th Annual Fall Concert. This year’s concert will feature traditional and modern koto ensemble pieces selected to honor the koto mastery and memory of the late Kazue Sawai. The music will be complemented by beautiful art on stage created by local artist Satoko Motouji.

Kazue Sawai cofounded the Sawai Koto Institute based in Tokyo, Japan with her husband, koto master and composer Tadao Sawai. Not only was she the instructor and mentor to our Artistic Director, Mitsuki Dazai, but her passion and innovative playing style was an inspiration to our entire group and koto players worldwide. Our program honors that legacy with traditional pieces signature to her repertoire and boundary-pushing compositions from the Sawai catalog.

Join an essential lecture by the acclaimed Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. Jared Cooney Horvath (PhD, MEd) is a neuroscientist, educator, best-selling author and expert in the field of human learning. His new book, The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kid's Learning - And How to Help Them Thrive Again, pulls back the EdTech curtain and explains the research showing how digital tools in the classroom consistently undermine learning. It also explains how parents, teachers and schools can push back with purpose.

As a leading expert in learning and technology, Jared testified before the US Senate on EdTech and is an internationally sought-after speaker.

Sponsored by the Institute for Families and Technology and OR Unplugged.

November 4, 2026

Special Concerts

The Philip Glass Ensemble returns to Portland for Powaqqatsi, an artful cinematic experience that speaks to the impact of modernization and industrialization on traditional ways of living. Seen through the lens of communities across the globe, the narrative is amplified by compositions from Philip Glass that feature native, classical, and electronic instruments. Enjoyed alone or as the second in The Qatsi Trilogy, you won’t want to miss this thought-provoking performance from The Philip Glass Ensemble and conductor Michael Riesman.

po.waq.qa.tsi (from the Hopi language, powaq sorcerer + qatsi life) n., an entity, a way of life, that consumes the life forces of other beings in order to further its own life.

• Michael Riesman Conductor
• Members of Portland State University Chamber Choir Ethan Sperry, Conductor
• The Philip Glass Ensemble
• Oregon Symphony

This concert is part of the Special Concerts series, and is eligible for the Choose Your Own Series (Portland only). Concert length is approximately 1 hour 40 minutes. No intermission.

Concert begins promptly at the time listed.

Lewis & Clark College Department of Music and Portland State University’s School of Music and Theater present an afternoon with Grammy Award-winning soprano Audrey Luna on Wednesday, November 4, 2026 from 3pm to 6pm in Evans Auditorium.

Live Wire joins forces with the Portland Art Museum for an afternoon of roving performances ahead of an evening recording of the program. The event coincides with PAM's monthly Free First Thursday and the Portland Book Festival's expanded programming. Performers will include poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle.

Free pop-up performances will take place throughout the Museum’s galleries, giving visitors a chance to catch live performances and storytelling while moving through the PAM spaces. Completely free through PAM’s Free First Thursday general admission. Also, enjoy a fully seated, ticketed Live Wire taping hosted by Luke Burbank with announcer Elena Passarello, featuring a blend of interviews, comedy, and music performed live for the audience, then edited into an episode for broadcast to over 200 public radio stations nationwide.

Visitors can take in the afternoon gallery pop-ups, the evening show, or both.

Singer, rapper, and author Dessa will join the Oregon Symphony for an evening of soaring ballads, writerly pop songs, and rap anthems. The concert will also include a series of new monologues, crafted in Dessa’s signature style—true stories told with intellectual rigor, tenderness, candor, and wit. Don’t miss this landmark performance, presented in collaboration with Literary Arts as an extension of the Portland Book Festival.

Sarah Hicks, Conductor

Dessa, Vocals

Oregon Symphony

Inspired by Davide De Pierro’s newly released novel The Letters I Never Sent, his live show blends personal storytelling, humor, and audience conversation. Throughout the night, De Pierro will deliver a monologue and read selections from the book, followed by an open Q&A with the audience. Limited meet-and-greet opportunities will also be available for those who purchase in advance. Davide is a New Jersey native that has cultivated over 3M followers on TikTok and 2.7M followers on Instagram and has been earning millions of views online. Known for his commentary on relationships, finances, and those relatable moments that capture the human experience, Davide is excited to be expanding into a fresh medium.

Portland Art Museum invites the community to join a Free First Thursday event, offering free admission to the museum for all, plus a Live Wire event as part of the Literary Arts Portland Book Festival. Visitors can take in the afternoon gallery pop-ups, the evening show, or both!

4:30 – 6 p.m. — Free, pre-show, pop-up performances will take place throughout the Museum’s galleries. Performers are poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle.

Free First Thursday tickets can be reserved online one week in advance and are also available at the door.

7 p.m. — Enjoy a fully seated, ticketed Live Wire taping hosted by Luke Burbank with announcer Elena Passarello, featuring a blend of interviews, comedy, and music performed live for the audience, then edited into an episode for broadcast to over 200 public radio stations nationwide. Performers are poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle. Doors will open at 6:30pm.

GA Tickets are $15. Preferred Seating is $40. Discounts available to Portland Book Festival passholders.

Dessa is a singer, rapper, and writer who fell in love with language as a toddler—and just never got over it. Now, she works in fields that traffic in words: she’s recorded rap bangers as part of the fiercely independent Doomtree collective, released a live album with the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra; contributed to The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler; delivered a TED Talk on the intersection of romance and neuroscience that’s notched more than 4 million views; hosted 2 seasons of behavioral science podcast Deeply Human (BBC/American Public Media); and published a memoir recounting most of the above called My Own Devices (Penguin Random House).

Mac Barnett, the 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is a New York Times bestselling author of stories for children. Mac’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Awards, three E. B. White Read Aloud Awards and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, as well as several international prizes. He lives in Oakland, California. His latest book, illustrated by X. Fang, is Tom Nancy: The Sheep Who Swapped Brains with a Boy. From two of the most exciting picture book makers today comes a hilarious trickster tale and Freaky Friday switcheroo story: a sneaky, cheeky sheep named Tom Nancy has a brain swap proposal for an innocent farm boy named Felix that will change both of their lives forever. Laugh-out-loud, subversive, and totally unexpected.

Ed Park is the author of the novels Personal Days and Same Bed Different Dreams. He is a founding editor of The Believer, and has worked in newspapers, book publishing, and academia. His writing appears in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Profound, wily, and beautifully wrought, his new book Three Tenses: A Transmission from the Nineties is a meeting of memory and myth, confession and obfuscation, coalescing to offer a singular picture of creativity in action.

The princess of Portland comedy, best known for her breakout performance on the popular Netflix special Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda, Mx. Dahlia Belle has been compared to a Swiss Army knife—different tools to extract sharpness, softness, vulnerability, hope, and wicked wit. She’s been declared one of “11 Trans Comedians… Funnier Than Dave Chappelle” by Out Magazine, repeatedly featured on NPR, and has written for Cosmopolitan Magazine, The Guardian, The Stranger, and Portland Mercury. Her live performances have included NW Black Comedy Festival, Upper Left Comedy Festival, SF Sketchfest, and an awkward conversation with John Waters and Piers Morgan. In the upcoming live taping of her comedy special Affirmed at Polaris Hall on November 22nd, Mx. Dahlia Belle delivers 60 new minutes of stand-up to celebrate and affirm being human in the modern world through a combination of the wholesome and mundane, anecdotes about house cats, liscivious foibles of the LGBT community, and an unapologetic account of her personal journey with gender-affirming care, all delivered with her trademark free form wit.

Free First Thursdays at the Museum and PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater aligns with the revitalization of the long-standing Portland art galleries’ tradition of opening their doors for openings, receptions, and events on the first Thursday of each month. In recent months art and culture organizations have joined to bring back this popular activity, including the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in the North Park Blocks.

Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

Portland Book Festival welcomes Molly and Meherwan Irani, the husband-and-wife team behind Asheville’s nationally celebrated Chai Pani Restaurant Group. Their flagship restaurant, Chai Pani, was named Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2022.

This year, Molly and Meherwan each bring a new book to the table. Meherwan has written No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World: At-Home Recipes from the Streets, Truck Stops, Villages, and Palaces of India. Molly’s Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality was published earlier this year. Together, the books offer two very different—and deeply connected—perspectives on food, restaurants, and hospitality.

In celebration of Diwali—the Hindu festival of lights, marked by food, gathering, and celebration—Molly and Meherwan will join their longtime friend Chef Troy MacLarty at Bollywood Theater on Alberta Street for a collaboration. Bollywood Theater will serve a special menu inspired by recipes from Meherwan’s book alongside its own Diwali-inspired menu. It’s a gathering of longtime friends, great food, and two books that reflect different sides of a shared life in restaurants.

Both books will be featured at Portland Book Festival, and Molly and Meherwan will be on hand at Bollywood to meet guests and sign copies.

Parallel Worlds Bookshop and the Hollywood Theatre present a special author conversation with Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu, celebrating the release of Jane’s debut novel, Public Access Afterworld, followed by a screening of Schoenbrun’s acclaimed film I Saw the TV Glow.

When: November 5, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Where: Hollywood Theatre 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97212
Tickets: $18 sold via Hollywood Theatre
Ticket price does not include a copy of the book. Preorder Here!

A mysterious realm waits on the other side of our screens. A dark force draws victims into its static. An unlikely hero must save them, and herself, from an electric hell.

Spanning decades and realities, Public Access Afterworld follows an unforgettable ensemble of outcasts and obsessive television viewers whose lives become entangled with a surreal pirate network. At the center is Bethany Peters, a trans content moderator working the night shift at a sprawling tech corporation. When a young streamer begins appearing in her feed and calling out to Public Access Afterworld, Bethany is pulled into a conspiracy stretching across screens, timelines, and realities.

A mesmerizing collision of speculative fiction, horror, conspiracy, and queer transformation, Public Access Afterworld marks the literary debut of the celebrated filmmaker behind I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.

Jane Schoenbrun is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Their films include I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Their newest film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, releases in 2026. Public Access Afterworld is their first novel.

Tickets for the screening and conversation are sold through the Hollywood Theatre. Copies of Public Access Afterworld will be available for purchase onsite from Parallel Worlds Bookshop.

Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu will not be signing books. Pre-ordered books or books purchased at event will be pre-signed.

Still photography is permitted. Audio and video recording are not permitted unless approved in advance.

1. Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun - Signed Edition
   (Pub Date: October 27, 2026)
   A mysterious realm on the other side of our screens. A dark force that draws victims into its static. The unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell. Public Access Afterworld is the profound, binge-all-night, headrush of a novel by the celebrated filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

2. Alchemised by Senlinyu Signed Edition (Out Now)

3. Alchemised by Senlinyu 3 Volume Deluxe Boxset(Pub Date: October 13)
   In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

Join us at Vivienne for an evening with Katherine Anderson, founder and former co-owner of Seattle’s beloved The London Plane, celebrating her new The London Plane Flower & Cook Book.

Part cookbook and part tribute, the book follows a year at The London Plane, pairing seasonal flowers with recipes from the restaurant’s kitchen and bakery. Along the way, essays and stories from the chefs, bakers, florists, and collaborators who shaped The London Plane tell the story of the community behind it.

For our November gathering, Katherine will be joined in conversation by Portland florist Hilary Horvath to talk about flowers, food, seasonality, and the ways both can shape a table and a gathering.

The evening will include conversation, audience Q&A, and a book signing.

Broadway Books is thrilled to welcome Anthea Kreston with her debut memoir Crescendo: Chronicles of an Adventurous Violinist (Paul Dry Books, 2026). She will be joined in conversation with Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty and Immaculate Conception.

When American violinist Anthea Kreston, called “An Indomitable Spirit” by Yo-Yo Ma, is selected as the fourth member of Germany’s Artemis Quartet, it is the culmination of decades of dedication. In Crescendo, her enchanting and deeply personal memoir, Kreston writes about growing up in a well-to-do but difficult family in Chicago, leaving home at age sixteen, studying at the ultracompetitive Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (Hilary Hahn was a classmate), then burning out and leaving it all behind for a commune in Oregon.

Music is more than just an aural language – it is a multitude of communication modes and literacies. Sight Reading features world-renowned songwriters translating between dialects in real time: the written language of music (usually expressed on staff), oral / aural traditions and “playing by ear” come together to work with Oregon Symphony musicians as they perform newly-created arrangements of songs by musicians who write their music in a variety of ways.

Jimmie Herrod

Jimmie Herrod is a singer, songwriter, and performer celebrated for his radiant tone and emotional depth. Hailed by The Seattle Times as “a voice like a beacon of hope,” Herrod brings striking expressivity to performances across stage and screen.

He rose to international prominence as a finalist on America’s Got Talent, where he earned the coveted Golden Buzzer from Sofía Vergara. He later returned to compete on AGT: All-Stars, further expanding his global audience.

Since 2017, Herrod has toured extensively with Pink Martini, performing throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He is also a frequent guest with major orchestras across the United States and has collaborated with artists including Renée Fleming, Lalah Hathaway, Brian Blade, and Vince Mendoza.

Equally at home across genres, Herrod is known for performances that combine technical precision with warmth, clarity, and a powerful sense of connection.

Katherine Paul

This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home.When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.

It is a powerful thing to return to our ancestral lands and often times the journey is not easy. Like the salmon through the currents, like the tide as it crawls to shore this is a story of return. It is the call and response. It is the outstretched arms of the people who came before, welcoming her home.The Land, The Water, The Sky is a celebration of lineage and strength. Even in its deepest moments of loneliness and grief, of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, the songs remind us that if we slow down, if we listen to the waves and the wind through the trees, we will remember to breathe.

There is a throughline of story in every song, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There is a reimagining of Sedna who was offered to the sea, and a beautiful rumination on sacrifice and humanity, and what it means to hold the stories that work to teach us something.

Chord progressions born out of moments of sadness and solitude transform into the islands that sit blue along the horizon. The Salish Sea curves along her homelands, and when the singer is close to this water she is reminded of her grandmother, how she looked out at these same islands, and she’s held by spirit and memory.

The Land, The Water, The Sky rises and falls, in darkness and in light, but even in its most melancholy moments it is never despairing. That is the beauty of returning home. When you stand on ancestral lands it is impossible to be alone. You feel the arms and hands that hold you up, unwilling to let you fall into sorrow or abandonment. In her songs Katherine Paul has channeled that feeling of being held. In every note she has written a love letter to indigenous strength and healing.

There is a joy present here, a fierce blissfulness that comes with walking the trails along the river, feeling the sand and the stones beneath her feet. It is the pride and the certainty that comes with knowing her ancestors walked along the same land, dipped their hands into the water, and ran their fingertips along the same bark of cedar trees.

This is a story of hope, as it details the joy of returning. Katherine Paul’s journey home wasn’t made alone, and the songs are crowded with loved ones and relatives, like a really good party. And as the songs walk us through the land it is important we hover over the images and the beauty, the moments that mark this album as site specific. The power of this land is woven throughout, telling the story of narrow waterways, brushstrokes, salmon stinta, and above all healing. Let it take you. Move through the story and see the land through her eyes, because it is a gift, awelcomedsʔabadəb.

**The word “gift” in Lushootseed, the language of the Coast Salish people“

Nick Jaina

Nick Jaina is a Portland-based musician and writer whose work bridges music, literature, and performance. Originally from Sacramento, he has lived and worked in Portland, New York, and New Orleans, shaping a multidisciplinary creative career.

Jaina is the author of the memoir Get It While You Can, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and now in its third printing. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, and Oregon Humanities.

As a musician, he has released numerous albums under his own name, including 2025’s The Monster Mash, blending literary sensibility with adventurous songwriting. His work often crosses artistic boundaries, reflecting a deep engagement with narrative and form.

He co-founded and served as music director for the New York-based ballet company Satellite, collaborating with dancers from Juilliard School and New York City Ballet, with performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Jaina has also composed scores for films and documentaries including All Sorts, Cement Suitcase, and Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire.

45th Parallel Universe is a collective of musicians dedicated to celebrating great chamber music through intimate, imaginative performances. Comprised primarily of musicians from the Oregon Symphony, the ensemble brings exceptional artistry and a spirit of collaboration to every project.

Since 2009, 45th Parallel has blurred boundaries between old and new, classical and contemporary, bluegrass and jazz, fiddle and folk. Their programming reflects Portland’s vibrant creative community, drawing together diverse audiences through unexpected and thoughtfully curated musical experiences.

Known for its “360-degree” approach to programming, the ensemble seamlessly weaves Bach and Beethoven alongside adventurous repertoire and cross-genre collaborations. These projects often feature artists from a wide range of traditions, embracing the richness and diversity of the region.

At its core, 45th Parallel Universe believes in music as a powerful and shared human experience—one that is both timeless and ever-evolving.

Alexis Nikole Nelson, best known to millions of fans as Black Forager, invites you on an adventure to discover the delicious and wild foods hiding in plain sight. Alexis captivates people with her joyful enthusiasm and deep knowledge of foraging and inspires them to explore the bounty of their own backyards, parks, and trails, and now she does the same in her eagerly awaited first book.

Happy Snacking, Don’t Die! is a one-of-a-kind collection of recipes and foraging wisdom that teaches you how to turn common plants, flowers, and fungi into yummy, plant-based meals. This unique work is almost like two books in one—foraging plant guide and vegan cookbook—organized by season to guide you through a year of appetizing discoveries. In spring, you’ll learn to pickle Magnolia flowers and turn Japanese Knotweed into a refreshing granita. Summer is for frying up Milkweed Buds, making Juneberry Hand Pies, and crafting Rosewater Baklava. When fall arrives, you’ll be making savory mushroom dishes (a.k.a. chicken of the woods) like Maitake steak and bacon. And in winter, cozy up with Pine Shortbread Cookies and Oyster Mushroom Chowdah.

Inspired by Crater Lake National Park, Michael Gordon’s Natural History weaves Native and symphonic music in this paean to the natural landscape. Plus, hear works by two of classical music’s most intrepid pioneers: Stravinsky’s experimental musical essay on wind and brass sounds, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Beethoven’s vivacious and dramatic Symphony No. 1. Native Oregonian Grace Miedziak enhances the program with a new work that celebrates the Pacific Northwest.

Norman Huynh, Conductor

Steiger Butte Drum and Singers, Native American ensemble

Members of Portland State University Chamber Choir, Ethan Sperry, Conductor

Oregon Symphony

Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Michael Gordon Natural History

Grace Meidziak New work (Fear No Music Emerging Composers Fellow, Oregon Symphony commission)

Beethover Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

November 11 & 12, 2026

Special Concerts

Portugal. The Man takes the stage at the Schnitz for the first time with the Oregon Symphony, delivering amped-up orchestral rock to close out their U.S. tour. Celebrate the 15th anniversary of In the Mountain in the Cloud alongside their newest album, SHISH, with live performances featuring music from both albums. They’ll be joined by artists Quinn Christopherson, May Arden, Onry, Redray Frazier, and Sarah Clarke for a one-of-a-kind performance created just for Portland.

• Raúl Gómez-Rojas Conductor
• Portugal. The Man
• Oregon Symphony

This concert is part of the Special Concerts series, and is eligible for the Choose Your Own Series (Portland only).

Concert begins promptly at the time listed.

Acclaimed Athens-based chamber ensemble Galan Trio visits Lewis & Clark College as part of their US tour for a performance on Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm in Agnes Flanagan Chapel.

Join us for a free musical performance featuring shinobue flute, Tsugaru shamisen and a piano performance by Maido Mind. This cultural performance will be held in the Jordan Schnitzer Japanese Arts Learning Center. Yumi Torimaru and Nozomi Imade, who come from profoundly different musical backgrounds, formed Maido Mind in 2022. Yumi studied traditional Japanese instruments including taiko drum, shinobue (bamboo flutes), and Tsugaru shamisen (Japanese lute). Classically trained Nozomi started studying piano at the age 3 and studied vocal music at a prestigious music university in Japan. Both women were born and raised in the Kansai region of Japan. In the Kansai dialect, “Maido” is a versatile word used as a greeting, a farewell, and a thank you. The mind enables a person to be aware of the world and their experiences: to think and to feel. Maido Mind, with Yumi on shinobue and Nozomi’s piano and vocal performance, offers a wide variety of music, from tradition to modern, standard to original, and Japanese to Western.

Greece’s Galan Trio performs at Pacific University as part of their Kinesis tour, bringing a program of American composers hailing from the West Coast, including Pacific University faculty member Ryan Francis. Their appearance is underwritten by the Elise Elliot Trust and is presented under the auspices of Greece’s Ministry of Culture.

”Kinesis” is Galan Trio’s attempt to explore the music of contemporary American composers
by bringing their works together in an original, multifaceted concert program. The project
draws from collaboration between Galan Trio and professors of composition from select
U.S. universities, and from the notion of “Kinesis.” Kinesis is an undirected movement of a
cell, organism, or part, in response to an external stimulus. In Greek, Kinesis means
movement, motion. Motion is a fundamental characteristic of all living beings; motion is
what all musicians worldwide have desired during the last couple of years; motion alludes to
continuity, and it’s a promise for the future of “Kinesis” itself.

Ticket Prices: $21 general admission. Free for Pacific students, faculty and staff. Online ticket sales only. Purchase tickets at https://www.pacificu.edu/musictickets.

The World’s MOST Iconic Ballet — With a LIVE Orchestra!

The legendary tale of Swan Lake takes flight in a breathtaking production from World Ballet Company, as fate and magic entwine in a timeless battle between good and evil. Performing with a Live Orchestra, and featuring a cast of 50 international dancers, over 150 radiant hand-sewn costumes, and stunning hand-crafted sets, this spellbinding ballet captures every heart-pounding moment — from the Dance of the Little Swans to the Black Swan’s 32 fouettés, and every pirouette in between.

With Tchaikovsky’s unforgettable score soaring through the air and played LIVE, immerse yourself in this mesmerizing journey where dreams, heartbreak, and hope unfold right before your eyes.

Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 20-minute intermission)
Audience: For ages 5 & over

*About the Company: Based in Los Angeles, and led by Sasha Gorskaya and Gulya Hartwick, World Ballet Company presents the most beloved and iconic ballets of our time in cities nationwide. Driven by the belief that ballet is for everyone, performances appeal to newcomers and seasoned ballet goers alike. The company attracts many international artists and comprises renowned professional dancers representing over ten countries.

To date, World Ballet Company has traveled to more than 300 cities, reaching an audience of more than 500,000 fans.

Make it a group experience! Special pricing is available for groups of 10 or more.

Young adult authors, Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves) and Isabel Cañas (The House of Gardenias) come together for a conversation on the hauntingly enchanted worlds in their latest releases. In the newest installment of the graphic novel iteration of The Raven Cycle, Stiefvater and adapter Sas Milledge bring the original text to life with rich illustrations and suspenseful panels. Like Stiefvater, Cañas expertly constructs a gothic world threatened by an unimaginable ancient power. Moderated by Alicia Tate, these authors discuss the mythical worlds they built and the characters that try to understand them.

The second book in Maggie Stiefvater‘s #1 NYT bestselling series The Raven Cycle, now gorgeously illustrated as a graphic novel!

Ronan Lynch is made of secrets. His longest kept one? He can pull impossible things out of dreams. It’s a secret that’s nearly killed him more than once. Waking the corpse road should have led Blue and the Raven Boys straight to Glendower, the Whelsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of Henrietta. But instead, the forest of Cabeswater has disappeared, energy hums and sputters beneath the town, and the Raven Boys’ search is at a dead end.

Ronan’s dreams may be the key to finding Glendower, but none of the Raven Boys are prepared for what will be unleashed in Ronan’s desperate attempt to finally control his power. Reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Sas Milledge, Dream Thieves blurs the line between reality and nightmare until they are one and the same.

A debut gothic YA from the USA Today bestselling author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba Díaz Sixteen-year-old Minerva has endured hunger, violence, and unrest in a capital city inspired by colonial Mexico.

Determined to escape her father’s cruelty, she reinvents herself in a wealthy loyalist enclave, becoming lady’s maid to the formidable widow Encarnación del Valle.

For the first time, Minerva knows stability with regular meals, warm light powered by magical chispa, and a measure of protection. When a ruthless regime rises to power, the household withdraws to the del Valle family’s secluded estate, Casa de las Gardenias. There, amid resentful heirs and rigid social hierarchies, something far older than the nation’s turmoil waits in the shadows.

It’s a haunting, timely gothic novel that weaves Mexican history, class tension, and supernatural dread.

Inspired by Crater Lake National Park, Michael Gordon’s Natural History weaves Native and symphonic music in this paean to the natural landscape. Plus, hear works by two of classical music’s most intrepid pioneers: Stravinsky’s experimental musical essay on wind and brass sounds, Symphonies of Wind Instruments,and Beethoven’s vivacious and dramatic Symphony No. 1. Oregonian Grace Miedziak enhances the program with a new work that celebrates the Pacific Northwest.

• Norman Huynh Conductor
• Steiger Butte Drum and Singers Native American ensemble
• Members of Portland State University Chamber Choir Ethan Sperry, Conductor
• Oregon Symphony

• STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments
• Michael GORDON Natural History
• Grace MIEDZIAK Cascadence (Rizzo-Cummings Emerging Composer Fellow at the Oregon Symphony, Oregon Symphony commission)
• BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21

This concert is part of Classical Series A, and is eligible for the Choose Your Own Series (Portland only). Concert length is approximately 1 hour 33 minutes, with one intermission.

This pre-concert talk takes place one hour before the Sunday matinee performance.

SUN, NOV 1, 1PM: Conductor Norman Huynh and Rizzo-Cummings Emerging Composer Fellow Grace Miedziak with All Classical Radio host Warren Black.

Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, showcases his wit, sophistication, and deep knowledge of focaccia in this tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic elderly Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills. Interviewed by Lucy Feldman (TIME).

An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.

Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late. Told with the signature wit, charm, and humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself, a meditation on how seriously we ought to take ourselves, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who we’ve always wanted to be.

Join us for the Portland launch of Any Time But This Time (Mad Creek Books), the debut story collection from LA filmmaker and author Adam Peterson, in conversation with Portland poet, novelist, and painter Zachary Schomburg.

The human condition is dire. We knew that. But it's also always been that way–we've always craved to be sometime else, from the first human woman (Denise, stuck with neanderthals) to the final man (Keith, losing all his language but the name of his girl–that, he'll save). In between, Peterson introduces himself as a shapeshifter, voicing a semi-delinquent and moderately depressed teenage Jesus in "Jesus Does a Hero;" a convincingly polyamorous prairie romance; 1983's fiber optic saleswoman to the local government of Shanghai, Barbara Roach; and a hormonal crop of teenagers sent to fight "the Schmoopys" once their orbit arrives and their hair has gone gray.

As they'll tell you, the findings are fairly straightforward. In all of human history, we have only been one thing: lonely. Well, two things. We've been horny, too.

Unrelenting, bold, and cynical in the way that only a child of Nebraska-gone-Hollywood could write, Any Time But This Time gifts us 300,000 years of humans destined to be alone, willing to give it all up for connection.

"As history tends to shave off the weird bumps and ridges of our past, it's exhilarating and unsteadying to read a collection that ambitiously seeks to provide a kind of bizarro reimagining of our world. Any Time But This Time is odd and hilarious and yet so tenderly human, so unafraid of cataloging all the strange desires and cruelties and moments of true connection that have somehow gotten us to this moment in time, and then it rockets beyond that to imagine an even stranger future. This is wildness of the highest order, unforgettable and highly original."
—Kevin Wilson, author of Now Is Not The Time To Panic

"The stories in Adam Peterson's Any Time But This Time are funny, but, like, really, really funny, but like, the kind of funny that make you laugh and laugh and then make you question your own soul, or whether you even have a soul, because Adam Peterson has slyly tricked you into laughing at some of the worst possible things, the most terrible of people, the most dire of situations. He has made you laugh the kind of laughter that keeps you honest, makes you see the world as it really is. This is a fabulous, unrelenting collection of stories, full of gorgeous, punchy, compulsively readable prose. Do yourself a favor: pick it up, take it home, and start reading."
—Manuel Gonzales, author of The Miniature Wife and other stories

"Deeply entertaining, the stories in this collection crackle with the spark of imagination, invention, and compassion. Peterson writes with a satisfying blend of humor and pathos, fearless in both wit and empathy. For lovers of George Saunders and Haruki Murakami, with a dash of Aimee Bender, this collection also feels somehow entirely fresh."
—Aja Gabel, author of Lightbreakers

"Each story in this collection is a window into unseen moments of history, and deftly conveys the "incomprehensible beauty, all too comprehensible horror" of the human experience. Peterson's voice carries an almost prophetic weight, masterfully balancing the lyrical, existential, heartbreaking, and humorous with a skill and style akin to writers like George Saunders and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. From the first cave woman to identify as human, to the unraveling of language as our species dies off, I was enraptured by this book, and felt genuinely changed after reading it. Uniquely funny, profoundly moving, and innovatively written, Any Time But This Time is a rare and exciting feat of literature."
—Erin Slaughter, author of A Manual for How to Love Us and The Dead Dad Diaries

Adam Peterson is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He's the author of the prose poetry collections My Untimely Death, The Flasher, and [SPOILER ALERT] (with Laura Eve Engel). His short fiction has appeared in Epoch, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and a mess of other places. His films have played at HollyShorts, Fantasia Fest, and Just for Laughs, among many other festivals.

Zachary Schomburg has written books of poems like Wool Moon (Black Ocean, 2026)and a novel, Mammother (Featherproof, 2017). And he's a painter too. In fact, he once painted a painting owned by Adam Peterson. He lives in Portland with B and Y.

Join us for an afternoon with Grammy Award-winning soprano and PSU alum Audrey Luna! Audrey will give a masterclass with L&C and PSU students and present a lecture titled "The Business of Singing."

Learn more about the School of Music & Theater Voice Area.

Choreographer Lai Hung-Chung makes dances of striking beauty and intention. “Birdy,” his captivating signature work for Hung Dance, moves between suspense and explosive energy, between the weight of tradition and the pull toward something new. Hung Dance blends traditional Chinese arts, including tai chi, Peking Opera, and classical Chinese music, with contemporary dance technique and driving electronic music, creating work that is poetic and rhythmic at once. What audiences see on stage is a world in constant transformation, where bodies bend and resist, images linger, and the tension between holding on and letting go becomes the dance itself.

TAIPEI CITY, TAIWAN

Birdy

“…a dreamy sensibility with astonishing athleticism in culturally sensitive modern dance performance.” —Charlie Smith, Pancouver

Sponsored by George & Nancy Thorn. White Bird’s Uncaged Series Sponsor: Ronni Lacroute

The Friday and Saturday performances will have pre-show talks. Come early to hear from the dancers from 6:15–6:45 PM. No ticket needed.

Join us November 3rd for the Hung Dance Lecture Demonstration, FREE with RSVP here .

Hailed by France Musique as the new face of the classical guitar, Djibouti-born French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre regularly delights audiences and critics worldwide with his charismatic artistry, embracing everything from Baroque-period repertoire to compositions by trailblazing contemporary composers. His jaw-dropping precision, technical mastery, and creative vision make works from all time periods sound as if they were written yesterday–alive, heartfelt, and filled with color. Don’t miss a passionate evening of Latin music, including many of Feuillâtre’s own arrangements.

This program is approximately 90 minutes.

“The music…fitted the guitar so well that, if you didn’t know better, you would have sworn they were written for them. They fitted the instrument absolutely beautifully in these transcriptions and Feuillâtre played them with such a lovely sense of legato and an understatedly gentle dynamic that, by the time the interval began, I found myself in something approaching a state of zen.”

— Seen and Heard International

The Old Church Concert Hall
Thursday, 11/5 • 7:30 pm

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SINGLE TICKETS

Authors Julia Cooke (Starry and Restless) and Lance Richardson (True Nature) sit down to discuss their new biographies.Both works explore the lives of trailblazing journalists and activists. Moderated by journalist Charley Locke.

The page-turning story of three women reporters and the way they changed the world, work, and journalism.

She hid on a Red Cross boat to reach Omaha Beach on D-Day. She walked the abandoned streets of Hong Kong to take food to her daughter’s father, a prisoner of war. She fought off the advances of overzealous Yugoslavian diplomats, found overlooked details of world history in a dentist’s kitchen in Sarajevo. She traveled alone to Mexico. She traveled alone to Congo. She traveled alone to the American South. She married Hemingway. She married a Chinese poet-playboy-publisher, then married a British war hero. She fell in love with H. G. Wells. She gave birth and raised a child on her own. She landed on the front page of the newspaper. She wrote for the great magazines of her time—Vogue, The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar. She wrote a play. She wrote a memoir. She wrote a genre-breaking travel narrative. She wrote bestsellers. She wrote and wrote and wrote. She changed the very way we think about writing and the way journalists craft stories—which sources are viable, which details are important—and the way women move and work in the world.

She was Martha Gellhorn. She was Emily “Mickey” Hahn. She was Rebecca West. Each woman was starry-eyed for success, for adventure, and helped ensure that other starry and restless women could make unforgettable lives for themselves. They fought for their lives and their work. They were praised and criticized for it all.

In language as lively and nimble, in passages as intimate and adventurous, and with conviction as fierce and indefatigable as her subjects’ own, Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless plays out the stories of three women across three decades and five continents. Martha, Mickey, Rebecca—journalists, authors, mothers, lovers, friends. These women didn’t just bear witness to the great changes of the twentieth century; their curiosity, grit, ambition, and stories changed the world.

The firstbiography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement, by award-winning writer Lance Richardson.

“A stunning, formidable achievement by a brilliant biographer. Lance Richardson takes his readers on a wild ride with Peter Matthiessen.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus

“A fair-minded, grippingly paced, and tremendously readable narrative.” —Pico Iyer, Air Mail

Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), a towering figure of twentieth-century American letters, achieved so much during his lifetime, in so many different areas, that people have struggled to pin him down. While ambivalent about his WASP privilege—as a teenager he demanded that his name be removed from the New York Social Register—he attended Yale and cut his teeth in postwar Paris, co-founding The Paris Review as he worked undercover for the CIA. But then, after a rebellious stint as a Long Island fisherman, he escaped into a series of wild expeditions: floating through the Amazon to recover a prehistorical fossil; embedding with a tribe in Netherlands New Guinea; swimming with sharks off the coast of Australia. His novels, inspired by his travels, were unclassifiable meditations about Caymanian turtle hunters and frontier outlaws in the Florida Everglades. Meanwhile, his nonfiction became legendary: nature books like Wildlife in America—“key parts of the canon of emergent environmental writing,” says Bill McKibben—as well as advocacy journalism supporting Cesar Chavez, Leonard Peltier, and Native American land claims.

Underlying all Matthiessen’s disparate pursuits was the same existential search—to find a cure for “deep restlessness.” This search was most profoundly articulated in The Snow Leopard, his famous account of a 250-mile wildlife survey across the Himalayas. In True Nature, Lance Richardson reconstructs the full scope of a spiritual quest that ultimately led Matthiessen, even as he inflicted great pain on his family, to the highest ranks of Zen. Drawing on rich primary sources and hundreds of interviews, Richardson depicts Matthiessen’s life with page-turning immediacy, while also illuminating how the writer’s uncanny gifts enabled him to sense connections between ecological decline, racism, and labor exploitation—to express, eloquently and presciently, that “in a damaged human habitat, all problems merge.”

the tudor choir
+ doug fullington

Tudor England (c1485–1603) was deeply unstable — yet monuments of its Latin sacred music survived, including the Sarum rite chant used before the Reformation. This chant formed the basis of devotional works by Taverner, Sheppard, Fayrfax, and Tye. It appears directly in several pieces on this program — among them Sheppard’s deeply moving Libera nos, whose chant melody is shown here. This music is inseparable too from the stone abbeys and cathedrals it was made to fill. These Stones Remain restores these masterworks to their spiritual home, performed by the Northwest’s own Tudor Choir.

• Sacred Masterworks from Tudor England

The In Bocca books are a curious and beautiful collection of 20 Italian cookbooks, each devoted to a different region of Italy. Originally published in the 1970s, they’re filled with recipes, hand-drawn illustrations, folk art, and wonderfully wonky English translations, offering a glimpse into the food and character of Italy from region to region. Long out of print, they’ve become cult objects for collectors and lovers of Italian food.

For the past three years, Cathy Whims and the Nostrana team have cooked their way through the entire collection, creating 19 dinners: one for each book. Now, for the Portland Book Festival, that journey comes to an end with Roma in Bocca the 20th book.

For this special finale, Cathy Whims is welcoming Italia in Bocca director Robert Serrini, an expert and passionate champion of these remarkable books. Robert will mingle with guests throughout the evening and document the dinner as part of a short film about Roma in Bocca. He also dreams of one day seeing the full collection published once again, bringing these quirky, art-filled books back into the hands of a new generation.

Whether you’ve followed the series from the beginning or are discovering these peculiar books for the first time, come take one last trip Italy in Bocca with us.

Cathy Whims recently published her own culinary book: The Italian Summer Kitchen: Recipes for La Dolce Vita. During this event her book will be available for purchase and signing.

Reservations required. Limited seating available.

November 15, 2026

Family Series

Alice McLerran’s classic children’s book The Mountain that Loved a Bird tells a heartwarming story of unlikely friendship between a barren mountain and a visiting bird named Joy. Experience Portland-based composer Caroline Shaw’s musical interpretation of the story as the book is narrated live in this celebration of friendship that teaches us the transformative power of kindness and care.

• Su-Han Yang Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Associate Conductor
• Pam Mahon Narrator
• Dance West Jason Davis, Artistic & Technical Director
• Pacific Youth Choir Chris Maunu, Artistic Director; Amber Schroeder, Associate Conductor
• Oregon Symphony

This concert is part of the Family Series, and is eligible for the Choose Your Own Series (Portland only).

This concert is part of the 2026/27 Sounds Like Portland festival.

Join a special evening with trailblazing drag artist, activist, and political candidate Marti Cummings and Portland-based constitutional law professor and author Robin Maril. Before the film, Marti and Robin will sit down for a live conversation about queer representation, civic engagement, and the power of showing up for your community. The conversation will be moderated by Kyndall Mason of Basic Rights Oregon.

Following the conversation, stick around for Queen of New York, the acclaimed documentary following Marti Cummings’ groundbreaking 2020 campaign to become one of the first openly nonbinary members of the New York City Council. This evening also celebrates the launch of Robin Maril’s new book, A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy. Copies will be available for purchase on site.

ON SCREEN: Queen of New York

2023. Directed by Emma Fidel. Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes.

Welcome to a different kind of drag race. As NYC emerges from the chaos of 2020, Marti Cummings (they/them), an audacious and big-hearted drag queen, goes all out in a historic bid to become a City Councilperson. It’s one of the most hotly contested Council races in years, and Marti’s strongest competitor is Shaun Abreu, a tenants’ lawyer with deep roots in the district’s Latinx community. As these first-timers race to do the most good for their Upper Manhattan neighbors, they offer very different visions for Democratic politics — one in a suit and tie, the other in combat boots and floral print. As this immersive documentary reveals, Marti’s passion inspires queer activists and allies to change the political system. Their campaign becomes a community of its own, especially for Marti’s non-binary peers who have never before seen themselves represented.

Poets Victoria Chang (Tree of Knowledge) and Beth Piatote (distant waters) sit down for a conversation on their recent publications andtheir evocative use of nature throughout their poems. Moderated by writer and editor Alyssa Ogi, this discussion promises a rumination on our shared home, oppressive efforts of erasure, and the art and language that we use to understand our world and ourselves.

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A poet watches the limbs of a eucalyptus tree get sawed off: the image persists, refracting and recurring across poems of art, language, selfhood, memory, and loss.

Joan Mitchell said, When I talk about love, I mean loving a tree. When I talk about love, I mean loving where a tree used to be.

Men assess the eucalyptus tree growing on the poet’s street; a crane arrives. The sound of a chainsaw rings in the air and branches begin to fall. This tree-cutting haunts the poet and becomes the locus from which the rest of the collection spirals. It refracts across works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell, and Hilma af Klint, whose painting series lends the collection its title and who becomes a model for engaging with the world. At the core of the collection, the long poem “Eureka” examines the violent 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from the eponymous California town. Roving, evocative, and intricate, Tree of Knowledge is rooted in Victoria Chang’s crystalline voice and generous, probing gaze, and by certain images —trees, a hanging figure, a branch, fingertips, a briefcase—that resurface like apparitions.

As a scholar of Native American literature and law, Beth Piatote focuses on the endangerment of Indigenous languages. As an activist, she moves against the current of English-language colonization, working to rescue and revitalize the language of her people. Language, she posits, is an expression of land, a means through which we can travel great distances.

distant water brings the reader into the language of our shared home, North America, revealing a sonic world and grammar governed by rivers, kinship, and ancestral knowledge. “In our homes and homelands,” she writes, “we share the language with the plants and animals and waters and rocks and sky.” Inventive and playful, these poems explore the sounds, structure, and wisdom of the Nez Perce language, illuminating its vitality and capacity to organize relationships to time and place. Braiding aural, linguistic, and spiritual ecologies, distant water conveys an understanding that to be in language is to be in place. To be at home.

Jeff VanderMeer's internationally bestselling, critically acclaimed Southern Reach series has been translated into over 37 languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson awards, and was made into a movie by Alex Garland in 2018. Called "the weird Thoreau" by The New Yorker, VanderMeer’s nonfiction has appeared in Time, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and Esquire, among other publications.

A.L. Goldfuss writes speculative fiction which reviewers have called “rich,” “intense,” “complex,” and “rather grim.” Recent work has won the Brave New Weird award and appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Goldfuss lives in the Pacific Northwest with stacks of tea and carnivorous plants.

The Fall Author Series is co-sponsored by Spoke & Word Books. Special thanks to the Friends of the Ledding Library for providing the funding that makes this program possible.

When Toni Morrison declares that she “can't wait for the ultimate liberation theory to imagine its practice and do its work,” she raises an issue at the heart of modern democratic life: What does freedom mean in the shadow of racial slavery and colonialism? While Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her contributions as a “revolutionary political thinker” remain underappreciated. Lawrie Balfour approaches Morrison’s political thought through her account of “word-work,” or the creative use of language, as a practice of freedom. First, Balfour considers Morrison’s defense of the necessity of writers to the flourishing of democracy and her reflections on the political implications of her own literary practice. Second, Balfour examines Morrison’s use of the language of “sovereignty” to convey what writers do, when they create worlds out of words. Third, she asks what Morrison might say about the part her novel Beloved played in the 2021 governor’s race in Virginia and concludes with some thoughts about the political urgency of Morrison’s word-work today.

Lawrie Balfour is James Hart Professor of Politics and a member of the American Studies faculty at the University of Virginia, where she offers courses on race, gender, democracy, and literature. She is the author of Toni Morrison: Imagining Freedom; Democracy’s Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W. E. B. Du Bois; and The Evidence of Things Not Said: James Baldwin and the Promise of American Democracy. Lawrie’s current projects include a series of essays on reparations for slavery and a study of the Black feminist visions of the journal Freedomways (1961-1985).

Free and open to the public.

Please join us at the 23rd Annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies for “Creating Collective Liberation: How to Come Together in Frightening and Isolating Times to Create Real Community and Lasting Change,” a keynote presentation by Ijeoma Oluo.

Ijeoma Oluo is a Seattle-based writer, speaker, and internet yeller whose books include Be a Revolution and the NYT bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race.

No registration is required. ASL interpretation will be provided. Free and open to the public.

After the talk, please join us for a reception and book signing in the Beth Miller Lounge. Books by the keynote speaker will be available for purchase.

Jake Shimabukuro is a world-renowned ukulele virtuoso whose groundbreaking artistry has redefined the instrument for the 21st century. Hailed as the “Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele,” Shimabukuro has captivated audiences across the globe with his masterful technique, innovative spirit, and deeply expressive performances that seamlessly blend elements of jazz, rock, classical, blues, folk, and traditional Hawaiian music.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, Jake began playing the ukulele at age four, quickly developing a unique style that pushed the instrument far beyond its traditional boundaries. He first gained international recognition after his jaw-dropping rendition of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” went viral, introducing millions to the ukulele’s untapped potential.

Over the course of his career, Shimabukuro has released numerous acclaimed albums, collaborated with an array of legendary artists—including Bette Midler, Yo-Yo Ma, Jimmy Buffett, Ziggy Marley, and Mick Fleetwood—and performed everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to the Hollywood Bowl and the Kennedy Center. His most recent projects showcase both his dazzling technical command and his growing focus on emotional storytelling through music.

Beyond the stage, Jake is a passionate advocate for music education and community outreach, frequently performing at schools and benefit concerts to inspire the next generation of musicians. Whether playing an intimate solo show or headlining with a full band, Shimabukuro continues to prove that the ukulele is an instrument of infinite possibilities—one that speaks a universal language of joy, connection, and hope.

Under the direction of Dr. Abbie Brown, the Pacific University Symphonic Band will present its fall concert program, “City Trees: Urban and Natural Landscapes.” This concert program allows the ensemble and audience members to be in conversation about the way natural and urban landscapes interact with one another and features music that speaks to these two themes. The concert is presented in collaboration with the Pacific University Art Department as students in Drawing and Painting classes depict one piece in particular, Planet B by Catherine Likhuta. Other pieces on this program include Flaxen Tresses by James M. David, Shenandoah by Omar Thomas, and Under Pines and Stars by local Washington composer Megan Vinther.

Ticket Prices: $11 general admission, $8 for seniors, military and non-Pacific students. Free for Pacific students, faculty and staff. Online ticket sales only. Purchase tickets at https://www.pacificu.edu/musictickets.

Novelists Emiko Jean (Before You Were Anne) and T Kira Māhealani Madden (Whidbey) join moderator and author Marisa Siegel for a conversation on their most recent novels and the secrets and lies that chase their protagonists. Told through multiple perspectives, both authors create page-turning stories about webs of violence, and the fragile lies that threaten survival.

After a woman is killed and her daughter vanishes, detective Chelsey Calhoun uncovers a legacy of violence and survival that spans from Japan to Seattle in the new novel by the author of The Return of Ellie Black.

A murdered woman. A missing daughter. A truth buried across two continents.

Married, pregnant, and thriving in her career, Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life finally feels whole, until an explosive new case shatters everything. A mother is dead. Her sixteen-year-old daughter, Naomi, has disappeared. And the search will awaken questions about Chelsey’s own origins—questions she’s spent a lifetime afraid to ask.

The victim called herself Anne Walker. But she was born Rika Takahashi, and her journey from a remote Japanese farm to suburban Seattle conceals decades of deception. Across Tokyo’s shadowed underworld, an isolated Idaho town, and years of carefully constructed lies, Rika reinvented herself at every turn. But she was always running—from someone, or something.

Now, Chelsey must find Naomi before she becomes the next victim. But the deeper she delves into Rika’s hidden life, the more she discovers: some secrets are worth killing for. And the most dangerous truths may be the ones closest to home.

Told in three interwoven voices, Before You Were Anne is a gripping suspense novel about the lies that bind families and the sins that echo across generations.

A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder—the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.

Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.

But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.

Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?

Join acclaimed historian Lord Andrew Roberts for a fascinating look at the men who helped build — and ultimately unravel — Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire. In his new book, Napoleon and His Marshals, Roberts brings to life the extraordinary generals who served at Napoleon’s side, from the courageous Ney and flamboyant Murat to the tenacious Masséna, iron-willed Davout, and meticulous Berthier.

In 1804, Napoleon created the Marshalate, the highest military honor of the French Empire, and over the next decade elevated 26 of his most accomplished generals to the rank. Roberts explores their personalities, ambitions, rivalries, and complex relationships with their emperor, revealing how Napoleon’s leadership both inspired fierce loyalty and fueled destructive competition among his marshals. Ultimately, only two of the 26 would ride beside him at Waterloo.

Drawing on years of scholarship on Napoleon and his era, Roberts offers a dramatic and richly detailed portrait of the men whose military brilliance helped create Napoleon’s extraordinary empire — and whose rivalries helped bring it down.

This event is a co-production with The Chartwell Society of Oregon, a chapter of the International Churchill Society.

Singer, rapper, and author Dessa will join the Oregon Symphony for an evening of soaring ballads, writerly pop songs, and rap anthems. The concert also will include a series of new monologues, crafted in Dessa’s signature style—true stories told with intellectual rigor, tenderness, candor, and wit. Don’t miss this landmark performance, presented in collaboration with Literary Arts as an extension of the Portland Book Festival.

• Sarah Hicks Conductor
• Dessa Vocals
• Oregon Symphony

This concert is part of the Special Concerts series, and is eligible for the Choose Your Own Series (Portland only).

Concert begins promptly at the time listed.

Internationally renowned concert organist Nathan Laube presents an exciting recital of thrilling organ music from a wide variety of eras and locales. This one-of-a-kind program features a diverse selection of works by Felix Mendelssohn, Dieterich Buxtehude, Charles-Marie Widor, and more. Laube's 75-minute recital showcases both his dazzling technique and his profound gift of listening carefully to the instrument and eliciting from it a thrilling range of musical colors — a combination perfectly suited to the world-class Rosales organ. He'll explore the organ’s full range of tonal colors throughout the program, which is offered in celebration of the organ's 40th birthday this year.

Nathan Laube, a truly generational talent of the time, is one of the world’s most elite organ performers and pedagogues. He is Associate Professor of Organ on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and International Consultant in Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom. His extensive international recital career takes him continually to major concert venues and festivals around the world.

Trinity's pipe organ, built by Manuel Rosales and installed in 1986, is one of the finest pipe organs in North America. Trinity Music is the professional music program of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, comprising the Cathedral Schola, Trinity Choir, and Choir School; a concert series featuring nationally recognized guest artists; and the acclaimed Rosales organ, all in one of Portland's finest acoustic spaces.