About the series | The current season | Performance times and tickets | Pre-concert dinners
The Edgar H. Smith Fine Arts Series provides quality performing arts presentations for the mid-Willamette Valley community and supports the community service and educational missions of Western Oregon University. Further, the Series provides master classes and workshops for University students; performances and discussion for our elementary and secondary schools; and informal lectures and demonstrations for the public, preceding performances.
We hope that you will join us for one or more of our upcoming events.
The season includes six fantastic events, representing a wide variety of musical cultures. the season begins in October with Mexico City's Danza Contemporanea Univeristaria. In November you have three nights to choose from to hear soprano Rebecca Fromherz perform a recital of classic Viennese art song. February brings us the Cologne-based Auryn String Quartet, and in March the world-renowned Chilean group Inti-Illimani will grace our series. The "First Gentleman of Jazz", Mel Brown, is bringing three star-studded groups for one heavily swinging April evening. For the season finale in June, New York-based jazz sensation Lizz Wright will perform a set of her favorite songs newly orchestrated for this occasion by the West Coast-based American Metropole Orchestra.
Danza Contemporanea Universitaria
Friday, October 9, 2009
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The art of dance returns to the Smith Fine Arts Series with the international dance company Danza
Contemporánea Universitaria. This exciting troupe is
dedicated to creating and performing
the finest Contemporary Dance. Based
in Mexico City, their repertoire is nouri
shed by the work of national and inter-
national choreographers. This program
will include the piece Feeling con Fellini, a
work inspired by the unique visual
universe of the legendary filmmaker
Federico Fellini.
Danza Contemporanea
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Rebecca Fromherz
Friday-Sunday, November 6-8, 2009
Smith Recital Hall
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The 2009-10 line up includes an intimate recital with soprano Rebecca Fromherz, in the newly remodeled Smith Recital Hall.
Ms. Fromherz will pay tribute to the rich musical heritage of the city of Vienna. Since the late 18th Century dozens of great composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler graced the concert halls and parlors in and around Vienna with their Lieder.
Bring all five senses with you to experience the music of this grand European city.
Rebecca Fromherz |
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Auryn String Quartet Tuesday, February 9, 2010
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The Koln-based Auryn String Quartet will make a stop on their U.S. tour at our very own Rice Auditorium.
The New York Times described a recent performance as "shared spirituality" and The Times of London said, "The Auryn Quartet gave a compellingly dramatic and magnificently assured performance."
The evening's program will include Brahms' Streichquartett a-moll op. 51 No. 2, Berg's Streichquartet, Op. 3 (1910), and Mendelssohn's Streichquartett f-moll op. 80.
Auryn String Quartet
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Inti-IllimaniSaturday, March 13, 2010
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For four decades Inti-Illimani's music has intoxicated audiences around the globe. In 2010, Inti-Illimani celebrates it's forty-third anniversary and the release of Pequeno Mundo, its forty-third album.Wedded in traditional Latin American roots and playing on more than thirty wind, string and percussion instruments, Inti-Illimani's compositions are a treasure for the human spirit. Their mellifluous synthesis of instrumentals and vocals captures sacred spaces, people's carnivals, daily lives, loves and pains that weave an extraordinary cultural mural. Please join us for an evening with this legendary Chilean group
Inti-Illimani |
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An Evening with Mel Brown
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Oregon Music Hall of Fame inductee, Mel Brown will bring
all three of his Jimmy Mak's bands to perform in one jazz
filled evening. The concert will kick off with the classic bop
sounds of the Mel Brown Septet, followed by the
delightfully swinging Mel Brown Quartet (featuring Tony
Pacini, Ed Bennett, and Dan Balmer), and will finish with
the high spirited grooves of the Mel Brown Hammond
B -3 Band (featuring Louis Pain, Dan Balmer, and Renato
Caranto). Take in a weeks worth of all-star bands in one
incredible evening.
Mel Brown |
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Lizz Wright with the American Metropole Orchestra
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The 2009-10 season finishes with an evening of jazz and
popular song performed by Verve recording artist Lizz
Wright and the American Metropole Orchestra. Stephen
Holden of the New York Times described Lizz Wright's
singing as "pitch-perfect, with a smoky, full-bodied texture
...impressive in its steadiness, control, and rhytmic subtlety."
Ms. Wright will be accompanied by the thirty-five piece
American Metropole Orchestra, in a concert of brand new
arrangements written specifically for this Smith Fine Arts
event.
Lizz Wright
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All performances - but November's Rebecca Fromherz dates - begin at 7:30 p.m. in Rice Auditorium on the campus of Western Oregon University. Ms. Fromherz will be performing at 7:30 in the Smith Recital Hall.
To purchase tickets for the events, please click here.
Catered dinners are served before each performance at 5:30 at Gentle House adjacent to the Western Oregon University.
Dinner tickets are $18 and may be reserved by calling 503-838-8147 or click here to download and print out an order form.
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