Description
FORESTSCAPE
AN EVENING OF SOLO TRUMPET IN THE WOODS
Sunday, October 1, 2023
6 pm- 7 pm (Dusk)
Hoyt Arboretum, Natural Amphitheater
(adjacent to Bamboo Garden and Stevens Pavilion)
Featuring Aaron Kahn, solo trumpet
Featuring works by John Williams, Poul Ruders, and World Premiere by NW composer Justin Ralls
Forestscape Program Notes
An early autumn alfresco immersive concert in Portland’s scenic Hoyt Arboretum, featuring solo trumpet virtuoso, Aaron Kahn. Including works by Danish composer Poul Ruders, John Williams and a World Premiere, Trail Songs, by NW composer, Justin Ralls, inspired by thrushes of the Pacific Northwest.
Audience members are encouraged to lie down, walk amongst the trails, bring picnics, blankets, chairs and enjoy the grounds of the Hoyt Arboretum.
Concert will take place rain or shine with location confirmation sent 24 hours in advance. In the event of inclement weather, concert may be held at Stevens Pavilion at Hoyt Arboretum.
Free to the Public, (limited capacity, RSVP required via this ticket link, CODE: arts4all)
Suggested Donation:
$35 General
$15 Students and Artists (CODE: artist)
Children FREE
Approximate Duration: ca. 50 minutes
Sponsored by Regional Arts and Culture Council Make | Learn | Build Individual Artist Grant
Community Partners:
Opera Theater Oregon is graciously acting as the fiscal sponsor for this event.
ABOUT AARON KAHN:
Aaron Kahn is an experimental trumpet soloist, creative entrepreneur, public relations specialist, and public servant. His artistic mission is to push creative boundaries, expand the imagination, and champion various humanitarian, environmental, political, and forward-moving spiritual causes – all in the name of individual and collective liberation. He studied Music and Cognitive Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, QC, Canada; got his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts; and received his Master’s of Music in performance from the University of Oregon.
A long-time student of internationally-renowned musician and pedagogue Brian McWhorter, his career began when he accepted a Graduate Teaching Fellowship at the University of Oregon. During his tenure at the UO, he was also invited to join the Britt Festival Orchestra – one of the nation’s leading summer music festival orchestras – under the direction of Teddy Abrams in 2016 for a project at Crater Lake composed by New York-based composer Michael Gordon, all for the Centennial of the National Parks Service. He is also working on a commission with world-renowned composer Fredrick Kaufman.
Within public relations, Kahn has worked as a professional marketing writer for DesignWorlds for College, a premier education consulting business in Silicon Valley. He has also been a writer for Crowd Content, an international copywriting and content writing platform. More recently, he was the Public Relations Lead for the Aquarian Minyan, a forward-thinking Jewish congregation in Berkeley, CA.
Kahn is a close creative collaborator with PNW-based composer Justin Ralls, and is actively focused on commissioning works by Ralls that reflect the urgent need for honoring and promoting the sanctity of the natural world and its biodiversity – as prominently presented in this concert. Aaron has also performed with Grammy-winning musicians and other celebrated artists throughout the Bay Area, Eugene, Portland, and New York. Most recently, he will be the featured trumpet soloist with the Golden Gate Symphony in their December 2023 performances of Handel’s Messiah. Other concerts coming up include two engagements as part of a concert artist series at Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, CA.
Kahn’s enterprising capacity as an artist also led him to join a paid contemporary Jewish artists’ residency in Portland called Art/Lab. During nine months of study, collaboration, and creation, Aaron created a project with the help of Grammy-winning, Platinum-selling percussionist and well-established composer David Rozenblatt called “Chronicle: Ukraine,” a piece to herald Ukraine’s freedom and sovereignty. Other projects included a CalArts-funded, pioneering initiative in the heart of the Southern California desert to celebrate new music in spiritually, psychologically, and acoustically resonant spaces.
His work also involves the political and governmental spheres in their nexus with music. He is in conversations with the Oregon State and Portland City governments about using music as an antidote and prophylaxis to violent crime. Of note is his new foundation, Pardes Ventures, which will serve as an umbrella corporation to house his various creative initiatives revolving around social justice, environmental stewardship, and spiritual growth.
Amidst everything he takes on, his wish is simple: to help usher in a modern age founded upon harmony, virtue, and more inclusion – all meant to advance human evolution using scientific, advanced technological, cultural, and spiritual means toward a more verdant, just, and peaceful future.
ABOUT JUSTIN RALLS
Justin Ralls, composer, conductor, writer, and educator hails from the Pacific Northwest and is inspired by the beauty of the natural world and elemental forms of creativity. As a composer he explores an eclecticism encompassing many styles including natural soundscapes, improvisation, electronics, vocal, chamber, film, jazz, folk and orchestral forces. An award winning composer, Ralls has conducted his works at the Lucca International Youth Orchestra Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, Britt Festival at Crater Lake National Park, the Newman Scoring Stage in Los Angeles, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, as well as other venues in Salzburg, Rome, Portland, Boston, San Francisco and beyond. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Creative Heights Award of the Oregon Community Foundation. His music is featured on the Sierra Club and National Parks websites and NPR. SF Examiner remarked of Ralls’ orchestral work, Tree Ride, as “a whirlwind of thick orchestral textures…definitely establishing his own voice…” John Adams spoke of Tree Ride as “impressive…showing a mastery of orchestral technique,” also stating “your analogy to natural forces was done very well, your thunderstorm basically better than the Pastoral.” He has been described by artslandia.com as “a gifted melodist…[his music] a beautiful blend of natural and human-made music.” Ralls’ works have been performed by a variety of soloists and ensembles including Albany Symphony (NY), Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, Third Angle Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, Fear No Music, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Jarring Sounds, Eugene Opera, Opera Theater Oregon, San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, Esteli Gomez, Molly Barth and more. Most recently Ralls composed music for and produced Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story, a new intercultural opera reimagining Sacajawea’s story through the perspective of her Shoshone familial descendants and oral history – a collaboration with the great-great-grand-niece of Sacajawea, Rose Ann Abrahamson, Shoshone elder, culture bearer and stateswoman as well as Shoshone Native American flutist and composer Hovia Edwards. In May, 2023 Opera Theater Oregon, in partnership with Portland Opera, produced a scene of this new opera in development, “Ralls created lovely soundscapes that combined the Native flutes with a chamber orchestra…. His music shifted organically – from languid to joyful to tense – and it all worked well to set the scene and convey the drama.” (Oregon Arts Watch). An important aspect of Nu Nah-Hup includes language and cultural preservation, funded by Native Voices Endowment of the Endangered Language Fund to record and document Agai-Dika (Lemhi-Shoshone) language and songs. His education includes The Boston and San Francisco Conservatories as well earning a Ph.D from the University of Oregon in Nature, New Music, and Indigenous Thought.