February 23, 2006

LOCAL ENTERTAINMENT

Keller Williams brings 12s string and sings

Keller Williams performs in concert Wednesday at the Historic Ashland Armory in downtown Ashland at 8 p.m.

Often compared with such artists as Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke, Williams stands out for his unique approach to folk music and for his rhythmic style as a guitarist/singer-songwriter. Williams’ combination of multiple musical genres blends with clever lyrics to ignite imagination and inspiration. Respected and appreciated for his musical creativity, such techniques as “mouth fluegel” and “guitar beats” contribute to his signature sound.

Known for his creative live shows, Keller, released a live recording, “Loop,” which offers insight into his live performance persona, displaying an original, textured sound. Demonstrative of Williams’ percussive ear and finger skills, witty commentary and creative imagery, “Loop” is another distinctive step in his career.

Williams’ latest release is entitled “Home.” His eighth recording, “Home” finds Home in his natural element and perhaps better represents what dwells at the source of his artistry than any of his previous recordings. His first-ever solo studio recording, “Home” was recorded in Williams’ hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia; and finds Williams performing on all instruments. The result is a lush and digestible display of his eclectic personal expression. The songs on this recording are essentially a more deliberate and refined translation of the on-the-fly syncopation he delivers during his innovative live performances. Songs like “Love Handles” and “Apparition” embody Williams’ signature sound and exhibit his imaginative musical mind. Funky instrumentals such as “Tubular” display his rhythmic and technical abilities.

Headlining more than 200 shows each year, Keller continues to perform at larger venues and hundreds of thousands of listeners are being exposed to his music. He has performed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the High Sierra Festival, and has shared the stage with artists as diverse as The String Cheese Incident, Ani DiFranco, David Grisman, Colonel Bruce Hampton, Phil Lesh, The Slip, moe, and Government Mule. Armed with his twelve-string guitar, Williams has been playing to shoulder-to-shoulder crowds throughout the country

Tickets are on sale now for Keller Williams ($20 in advance; $25 at the door) at www.mkpmusic.com, Music Coop in Ashland and Larry’s Music in Grants Pass.

Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon announces winter concerts

The Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon has announced its Winter Concert Series. The three ensembles of the YSSO — Youth Strings, Youth Orchestra and Youth Symphony — will perform in Medford on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, in Grants Pass on Saturday at 7:30 at the Grants Pass High School Performing Arts Center and in Ashland on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Music Recital Hall at SOU.

YSSO Concerto Competition winner and Youth Symphony Concertmaster Paul Grobey will be featured as soloist in a performance of Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin. A senior at South Medford High School, he is principal violinist in the school orchestra and plays in the Rogue Valley Symphony. He has served as Concertmaster of the Youth Symphony for the past two years. Reflecting on the work he will be performing Paul observed that it is “really vocal piece; there are a lot of moments when I feel like I’m singing.” The Youth Symphony will also perform Music for a Scene from Shelley by Samuel Barber and Gioachinno Rossini’s Overture to La Gaza Ladra. The Youth Orchestra will perform the Light Cavalry Overture by Franz von Suppé and Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 and others. The Youth Strings will perform several works including Rob Phillips’ Dance of the Brewster Bears and March of the Bowmen by John Caponegro.

Cynthia Hutton serves as Music Director of the YSSO and Conductor of the Youth Symphony and Youth Orchestra. This season marks Hutton’s eleventh year with the YSSO. In addition to her work with the YSSO, Hutton is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Southern Oregon University. She is a member of the Rogue Valley Symphony and the SOU Faculty Brass Quintet. Hutton has served on the board of directors for both the Oregon Music Educators Association and the College Band Directors National Association — Northwest Division. Faina Podolnaya will conduct the Youth Strings. Faina Podolnaya is in her sixth year with the YSSO as Associate Conductor. Upon completion of her studies in violin performance and teaching at the Soviet Conservatory of Music she accepted a teaching position at Kazakhstan’s most prestigious music academy where she worked privately with students, lectured and coached ensembles preparing for competitions and concerts. Ms. Podolnaya has been the recipient of numerous awards, including her selection as the Soviet Union’s Teacher of the Year. Since coming to the United States seven years ago, she has performed with the Rogue Valley Symphony and has taught at Southern Oregon University. She also maintains a thriving private studio for violin and viola. She led the Siskiyou Violins in an acclaimed performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2005.

The Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon is a non-profit educational and cultural organization serving Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass and the surrounding communities. This year more than 185 students are participating in YSSO ensembles. For concert, membership, sponsorship, advertising or ticket information, contact Sharon S. Wilson, Executive Director, Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon, P.O. Box 4291, Medford, OR 97501-0163, 541-858-8859, ysso@mind.net or visit the Web site: www.ysso.org

Tickets are $5 for students/seniors and $10 for general admission. Tickets are available at Paddington Station in Ashland, and at Larry’s Music in both Medford and Grants Pass. Tickets for the Feb. 24 performance are available through the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theatre box office. The Eastman Kodak Company is a winter concert sponsor.

Debussy String Quartet at SOU this weekend

The Debussy String Quartet performs Friday at 8 p.m. and on Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall in a concert hosted by Chamber Music Concerts.

Each performance features completely different repertoire: The evening concert on Friday will include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quartet in F Major, K. 168; Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11; and Johannes Brahms’ String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51 no. 1. The matinee concert on February 25th features Darius Milhaud’s Quartet No. 4, Op. 46; Vincent d’Indy’s Quartet No. 2 in E Major, Op. 45; and Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10. In addition to their concerts, the Debussy Quartet will also present an educational performance/lecture for SOU music majors on Friday from 1 to 1:50 p.m. The fee program takes place in the SOU Music Recital Hall.

The group’s expansive repertoire is enhanced by their special commitment to bring works by French composers to the stage and recording studio. Through their particular acclaim for their interpretations of the Debussy and Ravel quartets, they have introduced audiences to other French works such as those of Lalo, Lekeu, and the late romantic composer Ermend Bonnal. Currently touring the complete quartets of Shostakovitch, they also offer works of Janacek, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and more.

Open to various influences and new experiences, the Debussy Quartet likes to surprise the public and form new collaborations with artists like Igor Begelman (clarinet) or David Krakauer (Klezmer clarinet) in special programs that combine classical music with jazz and Klezmer. Noted for their performances both with James Dick and with French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the artists together offer the major piano quintet repertoire on tour as well.

Tickets are $26/$29, with a student price of $5 for elementary through college-age students. Call 552-6154 for tickets, or visit the Web site at www.sou.edu/cmc for information.

Benefit set for Ashland singer

A group of community members are organizing a series of fund-raising events during the first weekend in March to help Ashland singer and mom Trish Cook, who is battling lymphoma. Cook, a long-time member of the Ashland community, is currently While she does have some health insurance, it only covers a portion of the very considerable costs of her lifesaving treatment, and she has very limited means to pay for the balance of her treatment costs, according to benefit organizers.

Cook is a single mom who has raised three kids, Jenny, Matt and David, in Ashland. She has lived in Ashland for more than 20 years and has worked for most of those years at the Ashland Food Co-op where, for much of that time, she has been a well-known cashier.

She has sung with several bands and groups, and for the past 10 years she has been lead vocalist with Ashland's all-women rock and roll band, Blue Lightning. In her career as a vocalist, she has frequently donated her time, talent and energy to raise money for community organizations and for individuals in need.

Now Cook’s supporters are asking for her community's help through a series of events March 2-5:

• Thursday, March 2, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Ashland Springs Hotel ballroom in downtown Ashland, there will be a festive kick-off to the fun-filled, fundraising weekend. The evening will include a silent auction, wine, beer, hors d'oevres, and the music of Jim Quinby.

• Saturday, March 4 beginning at 7 p.m., at the Ashland Community Center, 59 Winburn Way, across from lower Lithia Park, Leslie Kendall and Bob Milrad will perform in an intimate concert setting. Following their concert, Cook’s all-woman rock and roll band Blue Lightning will take the stage at 8 p.m. with Trish Cook as lead vocalist for an evening of dancing to a high-energy, eclectic mix of familiar rock and roll dance tunes. The evening will also include some guest appearances of other Rogue Valley musicians and a bake sale.

• Sunday afternoon, March 5 from 2 to 5 p.m., at the Ashland Community Center, there will be a variety of entertainers including Siskiyou Summit bluegrass band, The Hamazons improv comedy group and the Women With Wings choir.

Tickets for the events are available at Heart and Hands in downtown Ashland, Bad Ass Coffee Company in Medford and Listen Here in Grants Pass and at the door. Ticket prices are $25 for the Thursday evening event, $20 for the Saturday evening concert and dance, and $15 for the Sunday afternoon of comedy and music. A weekend pass to attend all three events is available for $50.

In addition to the three entertainment events, raffle tickets are being sold for a 2006 Vespa LX50 motor scooter. Its retail value is $3,699. It can be seen at Low Down Board Shop in downtown Ashland, and raffle tickets can be purchased there for $5 each or 5 for $20. There will be 1500 raffle tickets sold.

All funds raised by the raffle and the weekend events will go directly to Cook to help with medical expenses. In addition, an account in Trish Cook's name has been set up at Umpqua Bank in Ashland for donations.

The members of the Trish Cook Benefit organizing committee “recognize that businesses and community members are often called on to donate to many worthy causes, and we have been very touched and heartened at the way many businesses and individuals have helped us as we organize the events to benefit Trish,” the committee stated. “Our little towns in the Rogue Valley are made up of many individuals, each a unique and important thread in the fabric of community that sustains us all. In that spirit of community, we are hoping that Rogue Valley residents will attend the weekend events, have a wonderful time, and at the same time benefit one of our own who needs her community's support now.”

For more information call 821-7328.

Poet David Whyte speaks in Ashland this weekend

Poet David Whyte will speak in Ashland at the First Presbyterian Church, Siskiyou Boulevard and Walker Street, on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and follow up on Saturday with a workshop that runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The theme for both lecture and workshop is “Thresholds: Navigating the Difficult Transitions of Life.”

Through the insights of poetry David Whyte will look at the part of us that can in fact, ‘go ahead’, beyond the boundaries of a small defended self into a larger more generous participation with the world. It is this experience of the frontier, David maintains, where the necessary courage, the imagination and above all, the energy, are all found for transitional challenges, personal and political. Poetry, he maintains is the act of creating a solid ground, and from that solid ground maintaining a conversation with the intangible, the numinous, and the just about to happen.

Whyte grew up among the hills and valleys of Yorkshire, England. An Associate Fellow of Templeton College and Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many American and international companies.

In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, Whyte illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace. He brings a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the nature of individual and organizational change.

Advance tickets are available through Imagine Adventures in Ashland. For information call 541-301-7469 or see the Web site www.imagine-adventures.com. Lecture tickets are $15. The workshop costs $60.

BFS treats cheesy connoisseurs to a sci-fi TV party

The public is cordially invited to the next Bad Film Society event glorifying the golden age of television science fiction shows, Sunday at 6 p.m., downstairs at the Ashland Elks Club.

Kindly bring a tasty dish for a luscious potluck dinner to begin the fun. This might be the best part for some of the crowd. Bring some abominably bad videos you’d love to get rid of as door prizes for our humiliating and hilarious raffle. Loads o’fun!

The event will focus on the golden age of cheesy sci-fi TV shows, the 1950s. Rocky Jones, Space Ranger foils interplanetary crooks with the help of glitzy Egyptian-style aliens. The first episode of the original “Superman” blasts through his infancy on a doomed planet, his awkward adolescence in Smallville and up to flirting with Lois Lane in Metropolis. Flash Gordon battles the evil King of the Subworld, a cross between “Richard III,” a Beckett character and Saddam Hussein. Plus, if the audience can stand it, they’ll vote on showing Hippie Rock episodes of “I Dream of Jeannie,” “The Addams Family,” and more.

Get ready for the seventh chapter of the 1941 serial, “Jungle Girl,” that will keep the crowd screaming for more. See terrific vine-swinging, cliff-diving, croc-wrestling, dorky gorillas, and of course, an evil witch doctor.

The entrance to the Ashland Elks is on Will Dodge Way (the alley between E. Main and Lithia Way and First and Second streets). The private Elks lot will be open for free parking. To park, enter on Second Street. There is a $3 donation requested to cover the costs of the room rental and supplies.

This is a unique opportunity for the public to enter the hallowed and prestigious portals of the very ritzy and exclusive Ashland Elks Lodge.

For information see the Web site: www.ephemera-inc.com/badfilm.

Celtic harpist/storyteller Patrick Ball holds forth at the Unitarian Center

Celtic harpist and storyteller Patrick Ball performs in concert on Friday at 8 p.m., at the Unitarian Center, Fourth and C Streets, Ashland.

Born and raised in California, Ball gave little thought to such things as where his ancestors came from. He went to school and supposed that he would one day be a lawyer, like his father. But he studied music from time to time and over the years developed a nodding acquaintance with the piano and the guitar. At the university, Ball found that he was irresistibly drawn to words, to the music of words, to writers who made words sing, to writers from Ireland. Then, when he began to study history to fulfill his academic requirements, he was not surprised to find that it was the lyrical, turbulent history of Ireland that engaged him. So much so, in fact, that when his father died, all his thoughts of law school died with him. Ball enrolled in graduate school and soon made his way to Ireland. There he fell in love with the eloquence and fire of the Irish oral tradition. There he fell in love with the Celtic harp. And there a few pieces of his life fell into place. For he came to know that marvelous unity of Irish words, music and history that would become his passion and, eventually, his livelihood.

Returning to California, Ball received a Master's Degree in History by Dominican College. He soon discovered that jobs in the field of Irish scholarship were not to be had for love nor money. So after laboring in various unrewarding lines of work, he set off hitchhiking around the country and finally landed at Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. There he lived for two years and worked as a groundsman, encountering a branch of that living oral tradition that had captivated him in Ireland. And there for him, among the Appalachian storytellers, his love of the spoken word was rekindled. Ball returned to Ireland and listened, then made his way back to California, determined to put his scholarship, his love of words and his neglected musicianship to some use. He sought out a maker of the rare wire-strung Celtic harp and taught himself to play. He then gathered the stories he had heard and the history he had learned and blended them with the music that had so often been their companion.

Ball’s visit was organized by St. Clair Productions. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door and $10 for kids 5-17. Tickets are available at the Music Coop in the A Street Marketplace, through www.stclairevents.com, or by calling 535-3562.