Dina Gilbert appeared as Guest Conductor with the orchestra back in February. She currently serves as Music Director of the Kamloops Symphony, as well as Assistant Conductor of the Montreal Symphony in her native Québec. She sees Walla Walla as an “orchestra of the future,” and as a place where she can help develop new and younger audiences.Read More
The cover of Little Rope by Sleater-Kinney. Listen (Runtime 4:54) Read Olympia (now Portland-based) rockers Sleater-Kinney are back with another offering. Unlike their previous two releases, Little Rope gets loud. […]Read More
Midsummer Update! As of the beginning of August, the 2021 season of Northwest summer music festivals finds some fests concluded, some continuing, and some just getting underway. Some continue to stream past performances.Read More
The orchestra tuning up. A quieting audience. Applause as the conductor enters the stage.
Familiar sounds marking the start of a live performance. After a year and a half pause, symphony season has been a notably missing companion in our community.Read More
From the teaching studio to the concert hall, musicians are uniquely poised to create community through their work. For one Tacoma-based violin teacher, inspiration comes from camaraderie with fellow performers and students.Read More
The last time orchestras had a regular concert season, few works by female composers were played. In fact, less then 9% of music programmed by the top orchestras in the U.S. were by women composers. Where are all the women? Dr. Sophia Tegart, professor of flute and music history at Washington State University is making sure they take a prominent place in her classroom. Read More
Austin Schlichting is a high school orchestra and choir director, in addition to teaching fifth grade strings in Lacey, Washington. He is part of a music education legacy. On top of being a performer and composer, Schlichting continues a four generations-long tradition of northwest music teachers in his family. Read More
Music is a tough business, but a diverse one. Not everyone can take center stage in the concert hall. At Washington State University, Dr. Keri McCarthy is one of the professors encouraging her students to think about their future roles in society as musicians– as music consumers, creators, and educators -- by looking to the past.Read More
Like traditional classroom education, Music education has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic - new boundary breaking virtual approaches, problem solving how to get students music and supplies, and fast tracking more advanced techniques simply to get through a lesson. Read More
Mary Cornwall was born in a covered wagon in 1881, as her parents made their way from California to the Washington Territory. The family settled in Spokane, and young Mary impressed her music teachers right from the start. When her mother died, the Davenport family adopted her and moved to Bellingham.Read More
Once upon a time in Walla Walla—it was the late 1880s—a little girl named Marion sat on a piano bench, watching and learning music skills from her older sister, Emilie Frances. Seventeen years apart in age, the Bauer sisters would eventually move to New York City, where each in her own way would help shape American music history. Their first music teacher was their Read More
2020 marks the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, and the world is saluting him with festivals, concerts and exhibitions all year long. Vienna and his birthplace - Bonn - are at the center of the festivities, but the Northwest is also celebrating the great composer, humanist, visionary and nature lover. Here are a few concerts you can look forward to in 2020.Read More
Composer Austin Schlichting was raised in Bellingham and currently works as a music educator in Lacey. Last year, he partnered with the Olympia Symphony to write and premier a new piece celebrating the Orchestra's 65th Anniversary. His new work for the Olympia Symphony is Nisqually River Run: A Fanfare to the Pacific Northwest. Read More
A long, relaxed summer evening in the company of live classical music and fine food. That’s a favorite Northwest pleasure offered around the region: Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (Concert on the Village Green), Bellingham Festival of Music (Chamber by the Bay), and Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival (Music Under the Stars), to name a few. It’s the kind of Read More
Britain’s prestigious Gramophone Classical Music Awards have created a new award for 2018, called Orchestra of the Year. The shortlist includes a familiar name to Northwest listeners: the Seattle Symphony. For the first time in the history of these awards, public voting will decide an outcome. The 2018 Orchestra of the Year Award will go to the nominee receiving the most Read More
NWPR’s Steve Reeder and Dr. Nikolas Caoile, Music Director of the Wenatchee Valley Symphony at a performance in 2015. Keep an eye out for Steve at concerts during the […]Read More