A live performance of the The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble’s (PJCE) “From Maxville to Vanport” featuring poetry by Renee Mitchell, music by Ezra Weiss, and video by Laura Lo Forti. This piece of community-guided music incorporates the stories of two unique towns in Oregon’s history, Maxville and Vanport, in songs for Marilyn Keller with our 12-member jazz ensemble. Maxville and Vanport both had significant multicultural populations at a time when Oregon was particularly unfriendly to non-white residents, and their histories deserve to be heard and better understood by all Oregonians. The Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble is a 12-piece jazz chamber orchestra which commissions and performs original works by its members and by other jazz composers in the Portland music community. The PJCE has received support from the OCF’s 2015 Creative Heights and Small Arts programs, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the Oregon Arts Commission. Now in its tenth year, the PJCE has commissioned more than 50 composers, and produced more than 30 concerts of original works.
A double bill show with the wonderful Anna Fritz! Cello-wielding folksinger Anna Fritz plays songs that crack you open and heal you. She creates a musical alchemy of cello and voice, strumming the cello like a guitar and playing beautiful melodies with the bow as she sings. Her songs boldly dig into themes of colonization, climate change, racial justice, gender, spirituality, and connection to the natural world. Like the great folksingers of previous generations, Anna is a catalyst for people to sing together. Her songs are infectious and easy to learn, imbued with a sense of timelessness as if they've been sung for generations. Her disarming, gentle nature and powerful presence gets unlikely crowds of people singing together from town halls to night clubs. Listeners will find plenty of rockstar cred in this folksinger's past. Anna Fritz is a sought after cellist with a 15 year tenure spanning the world of classical music and Portland, Oregon's indie rock scene. She toured nationally with Portland Cello Project for seven years and can be heard on albums from My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, The Decemberists, case/lang/veirs, and the most recent release from First Aid Kit. As a solo artist, Anna has independently released three albums and performed for audiences in more than 50 venues in seven states. http://annafritz.com/