Press

Speaking with the composer and the 45^th Parallel founder about Bunch's violin duos -- commissioned by Ewer -- and the upcoming “Friends Of Greg” concert.

The sounds of contemporary Portland music: 45^th Parallel Universe’s Pyxis Quartet dives deep into music created by five of the city's finest composers.

A photo essay featuring Pyxis Quartet and mousai REMIX, who recently performed Shaw’s complete string quartet music as part of the “Sounds Like Portland” festival.

Pub crawls are a time-honored tradition for those interested in checking out various watering holes into the wee hours of the morning, but they aren’t usually associated with the classical music scene. One of Portland’s intrepid ensembles, 45^th Parallel Universe, expanded the pub-crawl experience into the classical-music realm on Nov. 9, taking concertgoers to three different venues for hour-long concerts devoted to all of the string quartets of Caroline Shaw.

On March 1 Vijay Gupta, violinist and artistic director of Street Symphony, joined 45^th Parallel Universe for a performance at Polaris Hall. I may have said 45^th Parallel Universe, but it would be better to say this was an F.O.G. production – that’s Friends of Greg, meaning Greg Ewer, 45^th Parallel co-founder and one of the great violinists within Portland’s chamber music scene.

With great music and visuals and a fantastic performance, a warehouse concert creates an artistic evocation of vast geological disruptions and troubling environmental times.

About halfway through a delightful interview with Oregon musician and entrepreneur Lisa Lipton, after hearing mention of “the bar” a few times, the present author had to swallow his pride and ask, ahem, sorry to interrupt, Lisa, but which bar? She took a beat before explaining, rather patiently (for it is a journalist’s job to already know these things), “I own Mendelssohn’s on North Mississippi.”

January 26 brought New Yorker music critic Alex Ross to The Reser near downtown Beaverton. Hosted by 45^th Parallel Universe, the show featured readings from his extensive collection of writings as the leading music critic in The New Yorker and author of three books. These passages introduced a great collection of pieces by Ligeti, Luther Adams, Price, Radiohead, Wagner and Copland.