“Portland contemporary classical music organization Fear No Music is a civic treasure,” writes Matthew Andrews in Monday’s (12/10) Oregon ArtsWatch. “It keeps the classical tradition alive, performing select works from the contemporary classical canon while spending most of their energy on the next generation of composers.… With a stable of Oregon Symphony players in their ranks and Portland’s … composer [Kenji Bunch] at the helm, FNM generally puts on one hell of concert. FNM opened its 2018-19 season with a pair of September shows collectively titled Shared Paths: The Music of Migration…. The West Coast premiere of Wiancko’s Lullaby for the Transient featured the current FNM string quartet … plus Oregon Symphony Orchestra principal clarinetist James Shields…. FNM Artistic Director Kenji Bunch, at a noontime Old Church concert in October last year, performed his solo viola piece Minidoka … a sweet, ghostly piece, named after the Japanese internment camp in Idaho…. FNM also has a very nice habit of cultivating its own flock of composers, via their Young Composers Project…. The YCP doubles as a cunningly sustainable way of not only developing a creative base but also growing an audience.”
Posted December 13, 2018
