Many thanks to Tacoma Creates, Old Town Tacoma's Connelly Law Offices, Ted Brown Music, and many individual sponsors for sustaining Classical Tuesdays through the challenging 2020-21 season. And thanks to you, our audience, for your unwavering support! We were able to bring you a full season through Zoom, Youtube, and Facebook. In fact, because of the pandemic we have a lovely cache of videos for your further enjoyment!
Below are the 2020-21 season's videos, with links to fuller information on each event.
May 2021 - Elizabeth CD Brown performs
Music for healing and comfort
Performing on lute, baroque guitar, original 19th century guitar and modern classical guitar, PLU Guitar and Lute faculty member Elizabeth CD Brown brings us a program based around the themes of healing and comfort, in response to the pain and stress we have experienced in the last year. Featuring music by Thomas Flippin, including a brief introduction by Thomas himself, as well as music by John Dowland, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Fernando Sor, Justin Holland, and Ida Presti. Recorded by Paul Brown.
More on Elizabeth and her performanceMarch 2021 - Songs for the Spring of Waiting
by Tacoma composer Greg Youtz and Tacoma Poet Laureate emerita Josie Emmons Turner
Tacoma Poet laureate emerita Josie Emmons Turner and composer Gregory Youtz discuss and then premiere “Songs for the Spring of Waiting.” Josie’s response to the pandemic shutdown of March 2020 was an explosion of poems that ranged from gardening to students to thinking about the poet Walt Whitman and his response to crisis. Greg’s response to the poems was to set them to music as documents of this unique time. Soprano CyndiaSieden, mezzo-soprano Soon Cho and pianist Oksana Ezhokina premiere the five songs in a way that is also a document of these times- socially distanced and online!
More on the performers and the event
February 2021 - Greg Youtz and Zhang Er discuss their opera about the expulsion of Chinese-Americans from Tacoma in 1885
Greg Youtz, composer and professor of music at Pacific Lutheran University, and Zhang Er, poet, librettist, and professor at The Evergreen State College, discuss their collaboration on a 2016 opera titled "Fiery Jade" that tells of the lives of women across time and around the world, struggling in times of upheaval. And now, in 2020-21, they have again collaborated to produce a second opera titled "Tacoma Method" which portrays the 1855 expulsion of Chinese laborers, businessmen and families from Tacoma, Washington.
More on the performers and the event
January 2021 - Pianist Joe Williams leads
A Guided Music-Meditation
Pianist Joe Williams showcased Tacoma’s Black arts community in a meditation of music, dance and poetry intended to foster reflection during the hard times of the pandemic. Recorded at the Lakewold Gardens January 2021 by Joe, dancer Celeste Reed, and videographer/producer Serena Berry.
More on the performers and the event
December 2020 - Srivani Jade leads a Classical Tuesdays concert honoring Diwali, India's Festival of Lights
This was our annual benefit evening in support of Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma. Our theme this year was the celebration of love and light, featuring performances from the Puget Sound region and Hyderabad, India, by Satyajit Limaye on bamboo flute, Ashim Bhaumik on Baul vocals, Rahul Deshpande (Harmonium), Manoj Biswas (Tabla drums), and Srivani Jade (Classical Vocals).
More on the performers and the event
November 2020 - Violinist Maria Sampen Previews the Future of Classical Music
Maria Sampen, Professor of Violin at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, performs a concert of the classical music of our times, including music of women composers and composers of color. Accompanied by pianist Isabella Jie.
More on the performers and the event
October 2020 - Torch and Scott Kolbo present a Multimedia Event
This live multimedia Zoom event was not fully captured on video, but the trailer is on Vimeo:
Each season, Classical Tuesdays features a “new music” event by Northwest musicians. This performance provided colorful sounds from Torch layered with story-telling and visuals in Scott Kolbo’s video “Passages: A Fable in Six Cycles”.More on the performers and the event
September 2020 - Steel Pan Performance at Chinese Reconciliation Park
Classical Tuesdays hosted Steel Pan performing the music of Trinidad. Led by Miho Takekawa, the group performed several selections outdoors in Tacoma’s Chinese Reconciliation Park.
More on the performers and the event
