Portland Cello Project coming to The Matthews Jan. 19

The Portland Cello Project (or PCP, as their fans affectionately call them) takes The Matthews stage at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. PCP has wowed audiences all over the country with extravagant performances, everywhere from Prairie Home Companion, to that punk rock club in the part of town your grandma warns you not to go to after dark. The group has built a reputation mixing genres and blurring musical lines and perceptions wherever they go.

This is the fourth event of our 2017-18 Subscription Series season. Cost is $25 adults, $10 youth & BHSU students. Individual tickets will be available for sale on Sept. 1.

BUY TICKETS

Friday, Jan. 19, 2018
7:30 p.m.

Tickets:

$25 Adults, $10 Youth & BHSU students

No two shows are alike, with a repertoire now numbering over 800 pieces of music you wouldn’t normally hear coming out of a cello. The Cello Project’s stage setup ranges from the very simple (4-6 cellos) to the all-out epic (which has included 12 cellos playing with full choirs, winds, horns, and numerous percussion players).

The Cello Project’s mission is three-fold:

To bring the cello to places you wouldn’t normally hear it. Everywhere from nightclubs to symphony halls, from sports bars to loading docks, from libraries to halftime at Portland Trailblazers games.
To play music on the cello you wouldn’t normally hear played on the instrument. Everything from Bach to Kanye to Pantera.
To build bridges across all musical communities by bringing a diverse assortment of musical collaborators on stage with them. Everyone from the Andy Warhols to Peter Yarrow to Ben Sollee to Mirah to Garrison Keillor.

“Before this recent Portland Cello Project concert, I’m not sure that I’d truly realized how important live performances can be in helping you appreciate music.” Time Magazine Online

“It doesn’t get much more genre-crossing than this,” – MTV.com

“This indie orchestra gives classical music a jolt of energy,” – Spin Magazine

“PCP has come to epitomize Portland’s offbeat music scene, one where boundaries are blurred and cellos are in abundance.” -The Strad

The Start

In the fall of 2006, a group of 10 cellists got on stage at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge to perform western classical music in an informal setting.

Many of the cellists that night thought it would only happen once.

But slowly that one-off event became a second, and a third, playing Portland’s most popular clubs (Holocene, Mississippi Studios), and by 2009 the group had evolved into a nationally recognized performance and educational group with a revolving cast of cellists, releasing full-length albums, performing everywhere from punk rock clubs to, loading dock street parties, to exclusive private events, and symphony halls all over North America, spending more than a quarter of the year touring, and featuring a diverse repertoire of well over 1,000 pieces of music.

While the group changed and evolved in a hundred different ways over the last decade, the one consistent focus has always been building bridges between different musical communities through collaboration with myriad artists to educational and community outreach at schools and universities around the country. The group absorbed an all-star team of Portland Cellists (including folks like Skip vonKuske, Diane Chaplin, Nancy Ives, and Kevin Jackson). Musical collaborators have included everyone from The Dandy Warhols to Garrison Keillor to Trampled By Turtles to Corin Tucker to Laura Veirs to Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, and cellists Maya Beiser, Ben Sollee and Zoe Keating.

VIDEO: Portland Cello Project and Patti King: “Please Leave a Light On” from Beck’s Song Reader

This presentation is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the South Dakota Arts Council and the Crane Group.