Portland Mezzo-Soprano & Composer Dr. Lisa Neher launches Pacific Art Song (pacificartsong.com), a concert series dedicated to Western Classical Art Song, with a program titled Summer Nights. A celebration of French song, the program transports audiences to the era of intimate salons, where friends gathered in living rooms to enjoy music shared up close. The centerpiece of the program, Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights), explores longing, loss, and love across five songs that set vibrant poetry with closely interwoven parts for the voice and the piano. The work is the first major song cycle written by a French composer. Complimenting Berlioz’s groundbreaking piece are masterworks by Pauline Viardot and protégé Lili Boulanger, brilliant French women composers long marginalized due to their gender.Completing the program are two world premieres composed by Neher herself. Chanson d’automne (Song of Autumn) and L’heure du berger (The Hour of the Shepherd) set poetry of Paul Verlaine. Dubbed “Prince of Poets” by his peers, Verlaine’s name is synonymous with French song. Why art song now? “We’re living in an era of 15 second Tiktok videos and the constant dopamine rush of notifications on our devices,” says Neher. “But what we’re all longing for is something real and embodied. This concert is an invitation to slow down and connect with your senses, to hear and see and feel the music in a community.” PERFORMERSDr. Lisa Neher, mezzo-soprano & composerHannah Early, pianoS
Violinist Tomás Cotik and pianist Shinmyung Rho trace the French violin tradition across two world wars. Lili Boulanger and Claude Debussy died within ten days of each other in March 1918 — Boulanger at twenty-four, the first woman to win the Premier Grand Prix de Rome; Debussy leaving a Violin Sonata that was both his last completed work and the last music he played in public. Poulenc wrote his sonata in occupied Paris in 1943, inscribed to the memory of Federico García Lorca. The evening ends with Ravel’s Second Sonata, with its central blues movement, and Tzigane. Program: Boulanger, Deux Morceaux; Debussy, Sonata in G minor; Poulenc, Sonata for Violin and Piano; Ravel, Sonata No. 2 in G major and Tzigane. $30 general admission, free for PSU students, faculty and staff.
PORTLAND, OR — On Sunday, November 22, 2026, New York-based pianist, composer, and storyteller David Haney brings the world premiere of The Waters of Non-Existence: Vishnu to Portland, Oregon — an immersive concert work for piano, bass clarinet, bass, and spoken narration. The performance takes place at Augustana Lutheran Church at 4:00 PM and features two of Portland’s most celebrated creative musicians: multi-reed master Ike Levin on bass clarinet and bassist Shao Way Wu. The Waters of Non-Existence: Vishnu draws on three ancient Vedic stories of the Hindu god Vishnu — the Preserver, the Dreamer of Worlds, the God who enters human life in moments of cosmic need — and reimagines them within a contemporary New York City setting. The result is an evening of music and mythology that contemplates what it means for the divine to live among us: in the streets, in the subways, in the silences between notes. The concert is drawn from Haney’s new album, The Waters of Non-Existence, released in June 2026 on Ravello Records / PARMA Recordings — a work that has earned national press attention and critical praise since its release.
Join PSU professor and violinist Tomás Cotik and pianist Shinmyung Rho for an evening celebrating some of the most captivating works in the French violin repertoire. The program features the elegance and imagination of Claude Debussy’s Violin Sonata, the lyrical charm of Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne and Cortège, the expressive intensity of Francis Poulenc’s Violin Sonata, and two beloved works by Maurice Ravel: the Violin Sonata No. 2 and the dazzling virtuoso showpiece Tzigane. Spanning the late Romantic and early modern eras, these works reveal the remarkable palette of colors, textures, and emotions that characterizes French music, showcasing its refinement, imagination, and brilliance.
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