Portland Opera & Jimmie Herrod
January 25, 2024: Host Christa Wessel welcomes the Portland Opera to the Roger O. Doyle performance studio. Plus, renowned vocalist Jimmie Herrod returns with more incredible performances.
Portland Opera will preview their upcoming production of Enchanted Woods: Shakespeare & Song, including stories and songs inspired by 20th century adaptations of his enduring works. Then, Jimmie Herrod will share an exclusive sneak peek at the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 Spectacular.
ABOUT
Portland Opera has been bringing opera to life since the company’s founding in 1964. The first production was Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, which opened on November 7, 1964, at the Leodis V. McDaniel High School (then known as Madison High School). This first season also included Puccini’s beloved masterpiece, La Bohème, which (to date) has been the most performed opera in the company’s history.
Today, you can still find Portland Opera singers in parks and festivals around town, with their Opera a la Cart performances. Learn more at portlandopera.org.
Enchanted Woods: Shakespeare & Song runs February 2 – 11, 2024. Enter Shakespeare’s forest: a place of magic, love and transformation. Here, to honor Shakespeare’s first folio, we’ll be immersed in an evening of story and song inspired by 20th century adaptations of his enduring works. Through sweet melody and poignant poetry, we’ll celebrate the natural magic of the bard—to honor that which enchants us still, four hundred years later.
With “a voice like a beacon of hope” (Seattle Times), vocalist Jimmie Herrod brings singular power and expressivity to his globe-trotting career as a singer, songwriter, and entertainer on stage and screen. Herrod first came to worldwide prominence as a finalist on the NBC nationally broadcast television show, “America’s Got Talent,” earning the rare “Golden Buzzer” recognition from actress Sofia Vargara and returning the following year on the AGT All-Stars series.
As a solo artist, Herrod has appeared to critical and audience acclaim with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and with the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Houston, and Oregon, including as a featured soloist for the globally televised PBS “Joni Mitchell Songbook” concert at The Kennedy Center with the NSO, where he shared the stage with musical luminaries like Renee Fleming, Lalah Hathaway, Raul Midon, and Aoife O’Donovan.
Keep reading at jimmiebeingjimmie.com.
Since its founding in 1982, Portland Columbia Symphony has become a staple of Multnomah County’s arts scene, bringing 62 paid core musicians together each year to perform a classical subscription series and myriad education and outreach events for audiences based in both Portland and Gresham. What started out as a volunteer orchestra formed by Jerry Leudders would soon become an incorporated non-profit organization, when John Trudeau took over as PCSO’s music director and conductor in 1986. Huw Edwards served in that same role from 2000 to 2012, before Steven Byess took the reins in 2014 after a national search.
Learn more at pcsymphony.org.
