By for Elizabeth Hayes for Portland Business Journal
At a Monday press conference, the art groups announced plans for a series of art summits to “strategize a new plan.”
Keep reading at bizjournals.com.
When you listen to All Classical Radio, you hear handcrafted radio programming that is locally produced and community focused. In collaboration with students from Portland State University’s Branded Media Course and the PSU School of Film, All Classical invites you to explore what it means to make radio for humans, by humans, with a brief and powerful behind-the-scenes look at the station’s approach to independent classical music public radio.
“What [All Classical Radio hosts share] of themselves…is what I think helps to create a narrative and a relationship with our listeners” says Director of Music and Programming John Pitman in the video.
“Connection is hard to come by,” adds Radio Network Program Director Brandi Parisi. “[All Classical] fills these gaps in places that people really need. We get letters from folks who say, ‘I feel like I know you,’ ‘I feel like you’re my friend.’ There’s nothing more human than that.”
Watch below, or on All Classical Radio’s YouTube channel.
Creators and contributors:
This project with PSU and the PSU School of Film highlights All Classical Radio’s commitment to community collaboration, arts and media education, and supporting the next generation of creatives and leaders. The station’s robust mentorship and education initiatives include the unique Young Artist in Residence and Youth Ambassadors programs, paid internships, arts journalism and productino mentorships, and more. Its International Children’s Arts Network provides access to music and the arts for children, families, and educators 24/7 at icanradio.org.
Thank you to Michael Stringfield, Portland State University Adjunct Assistant Professor, Branded Media, PSU School of Film, and all of the brilliant PSU students involved in bringing this video to life.
Renowned for his interpretations of the music of Russian composer and mystic, Alexander Scriabin, celebrated pianist Yevgeny Sudbin is host John Pitman’s latest guest for this Arts Blog interview.
On Sudbin’s newest album, Ver La Flamme (Toward the Flame), the pianist shares his deep knowledge and appreciation for the music of the early 20th century composer, and his imaginative and thought-provoking piano pieces. The album includes preludes, études, sonatas, and fantasies.
In his conversation with All Classical Radio’s Director of Programming, John Pitman, Sudbin shares some fascinating stories about Alexander Scriabin’s wild ideas about the direction of his music, and his audiences. Listening to these works reminds us why the composer and his music truly feel “outside of time.”
Hear Pitman’s conversation with Sudbin below:
Yevgeny Sudbin’s Ver La Flamme is available May 9, 2025, on BIS Records.
April is National Poetry Month. All Classical Radio host Brandi Parisi recently spoke with Portland-based songwriters, composers, and poets Dao Strom and Alicia Jo Rabins about their new collaborative project/album, Wild Nights.
Hear their interview, including details about the multi-year project, their music choices of folk and Americana, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson below:
Imagine if we could hear, decades after a composer has passed, a note-for-note set of instructions of what how they intended their music to be heard? It’s rarer than you might think. In this Arts Blog, program director John Pitman has a conversation with the grandson of the Austrian born composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold – Leslie or “Les” Korngold – and John Mauceri, a conductor who has devoted his career to elevating the importance of music by Korngold and other 20th century European composers who were effectively saved by Hollywood studios, who needed the rich traditions for their new art form.
The new recording shares a rediscovered record made by Korngold himself, at the piano, of his Symphony in f-sharp minor, from the 1950s. This is a fascinating story that takes us from pre-war Vienna, to Hollywood California, and ultimately back here to Portland, Oregon, where the Korngold legacy continues.
Hear John Pitman’s conversation with Les Korngold and John Mauceri below:
Photo of the Korngolds and John Mauceri at the Hollywood Bowl – by Donald Dietz in 1993 (Leslie Korngold is seen behind John’s left shoulder):
Front of LP, back of LP, and LP in sleeve photos – courtesy of the Special Collections and Photograph Archive, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:
The Korngold Symphony is available now through Supertrain Records.
Alex Prior, the newly appointed Music Director of the Eugene Symphony, speaks with All Classical Radio host Brandi Parisi. In this wide-ranging discussion, they talked about Alex’s phenomenal career (he was Assistant Conductor of the Seattle Symphony at age 17!), universality in music, the importance of outreach and community, his love of the Pacific Northwest, and his interest in geographic elevation facts.
Conductor and Composer Alex Prior (b. 1992) brings over 19 years of international and critically acclaimed experience to his appointment as Music Director-designate of the Eugene Symphony. His tenure with the Eugene Symphony will begin in fall, 2025. Alex has earned a reputation since early childhood for his profound and visionary music making which he has had the opportunity to share with some of the world’s greatest soloists, orchestras, and opera companies.
Alex began his post-secondary studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 13 with a dual major in conducting with Alexander Alexeev and composition with Boris Tishchenko. He made his professional conducting debut at 14, conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride and graduated with top honors at the age of 17 – a feat only matched by Sergei Prokofiev. Immediately thereafter he was appointed by the Seattle Symphony as an Assistant Conductor.
He will take the artistic helm at the Eugene Symphony for their 60th anniversary 2025/26 season.
Learn more at eugenesymphony.org
By Brett Campbell for Oregon ArtsWatch
Portland composer, musician and student Elaina Stuppler’s winning streak continues. Stuppler is All Classical Radio‘s Young Artist in Residence (extended through 2025), where she’s performed at various events and participates in programming the station’s International Children’s Arts Network (ICAN), and interviewed Julie Andrews, Itzhak Perlman, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. Last month, the station showcased several of her sparkling, varied scores on its essential weekly Thursdays @ Three live show.
Keep reading at orartswatch.org.
At All Classical Radio, women composers have long been an essential part of our daily playlist. We’re proud to shine a spotlight on underrepresented composers, both living and passed, and introduce listeners to the wealth of music written by them. In celebration of Women’s History Month 2025, we’re exploring the lives and careers of eight women composers whose music we love to play on air all year round. Keep reading to learn more!
Known as the “valkyrie of the piano,” Teresa Carreño was a Venezuelan concert pianist, singer, and composer. Born in Caracas, Carreño and her family moved to New York when the musician was still a child in response to growing political instability. Spending time in both New York and Paris during her upbringing, Carreño was able to pursue an international musical career. She became one of the first female pianists to tour the United States, quickly becoming a role model for subsequent generations of American woman musicians. As a composer, Carreño wrote around 80 works, many of which were for the piano and performed herself in concert.
Fun fact: In 1863, when Carreño was still a child, she performed for Abraham Lincoln at the White House. Decades later, in 1916, she returned to the White House to perform for Woodrow Wilson.
French composer and organist Fernande Decruck made her gift for music known early on in life. Having won several prestigious accolades by her teens, Decruck entered the Paris Conservatory, where she excelled in composition and piano studies. As she began to make her mark as a working professional, Decruck spent a period of time touring throughout the United States, giving impressive concerts on the organ where she would improvise for the audience. This period in the U.S. also proved fruitful for composing, resulting in many new works for piano and organ, as well as her first works for saxophone—Decruck’s husband, Maurice, played the instrument and successfully earned a position playing with the New York Philharmonic.
After returning to France, Decruck continued to devote her life to music: composing, performing, and teaching. Despite her successful career, her legacy fell into obscurity following her death and has only recently begun gaining attention once more.
Grażyna Bacewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian violinist, pianist, and composer who created a unique path for herself (at least for a woman at the time) by pursuing performance and composition on relatively equal terms. Having studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Bacewicz would go on to premiere many of her own works in concert. The bulk of her catalog consisted of chamber music works, particularly music written for strings. She became well-known and appreciated in her native Poland but had a harder time breaking down barriers on the international stage. Unfortunately, for the last 15 years of her life, Bacewicz was forced to retire from performing and focus exclusively on composition because of injuries suffered from a car accident.
Fun fact: In addition to writing music, Bacewicz also wrote novels and short stories.
Trailblazing American composer Joan Tower’s career has spanned more than sixty years, making a significant mark on the world of classical music in the States and beyond. When asked about her musical voice, Tower has responded, “My music is about rhythm, predominantly, the rhythm of ideas. And it’s also organic, and it has a large-scale narrative… It’s also very important for me to be clear: I don’t think my music ever gets complicated enough that you don’t hear everything.”
In 2020, Tower was chosen as “Composer of the Year” by Musical America, and in 2019, the League of American Orchestras awarded her its highest honor, the Gold Baton. She currently serves as the Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972. All Classical Radio listeners likely know Tower best for Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is dedicated to women who take risks and who are adventurous.
Born into a family of artists and intellectuals, Victoria Yagling was a Russian cellist and composer who made a name for herself as a major force in the USSR. Unfortunately, she would have to wait until 1990 to break beyond her native barriers when she was able to emigrate to Finland. While continuing to compose, Yagling also taught cello at the Jean Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Unsurprisingly, her works for the string instrument have become the most prominent part of Yagling’s compositional legacy. Stylistically, her music embodies a Romantic essence unmistakably born out of the influence of her fellow Russian predecessors, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
Errollyn Wallen CBE is a Belize-born British composer who recently became the first Black woman to be appointed Master of the King’s Music, an honor that endorses her exceptional musical contributions. Wallen’s works have also been performed at the BBC Proms, the 2012 Paralympic Games, and the late Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. As an emerging composer in the 1980s, Wallen struggled with breaking down barriers for women in the field, especially women of color. Consequently, she co-founded, along with other female composers, musicians, and administrators, the organization Women in Music, promoting works by underrepresented voices in the field.
As a composer, Wallen has written over 20 operas in addition to a large catalog of works for orchestra and chamber ensemble.
Based in Los Angeles, Indian-American composer Reena Esmail connects the worlds of Indian and Western classical soundscapes in her music. With a focus on works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, and choir, Esmail uses her music to address humanity in art and create a sense of belonging and inclusivity among its listeners. After earning degrees from both The Julliard School and Yale School of Music, she subsequently sought a return to her cultural roots and attained a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India.
Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence. She also currently serves as Artistic Director of Shastra, an organization that fosters cross-cultural dialogue between Western music and the music of India. In 2022, Esmail’s life and career were featured on an episode of the PBS Great Performances series, “Now Hear This.”
Naomi LaViolette is an American composer, pianist, and singer-songwriter whose music is influenced not only by her classical education but also by her study of jazz, folk songs, soul, pop, and gospel. As a singer, Naomi attributes songwriting in her early 20s as a way to process strong emotions and experiences. With four albums of original music under her belt and many more singles, Naomi writes songs filled “with the stories, emotions, celebrations, and struggles of what it means to be human.”
LaViolette is based in Portland, OR, and has collaborated with several local organizations. Since 2004, she has been the pianist for the Oregon Repertory Singers, in addition to working with the Oregon Symphony as a songwriter and arranger for The Lullaby Project. Her work with Saving His Music, a project preserving the music of a talented pianist suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, received prominent coverage both locally and across the country.
If you enjoyed this post, check out a few more from the Arts Blog celebrating the lives of women composers:
By Radio Online
All Classical Radio in Portland, OR promotes Brandi Parisi to Radio Network Program Director for both All Classical Radio and the International Children’s Arts Network. In this role, Parisi will oversee the programming staff and lead strategic initiatives across the two networks.
Keep reading at news.radio-online.com.
By Cameron Coats for Radio Ink
All Classical Radio has promoted Brandi Parisi to Radio Network Program Director for both KQAC content and the International Children’s Arts Network. She previously served as the Portland public radio outlet’s Assistant Program Director.
Parisi’s career in public media spans over 30 years, with experience as a reporter, arts and culture producer, program director, and host at stations in Atlanta, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. She joined All Classical Radio in 2008 and continues to host the midday show and produce the syndicated Played in Oregon program and the Oregon Symphony broadcast series.
Keep reading at radioink.com.
