All Classical Portland | Where We Live

Where We Live host Adam Eccleston introduces us to beloved children's entertainer Nikki Brown Clown. She is Portland's first Black woman clown, and the Grand Marshall of the 2022 Good in the Hood Multicultural Music, Arts & Food Festival! Nikki uses dance, humor, and a love for her community to promote youth literacy. Learn more at nikkibrownclown.com.

Adam Eccleston talks with Gregory Dubay of the Community Music Center.

This week on Where We Live, Portland musician and educator Aaron Nigel Smith talks about his collaborative album All One Tribe, which celebrates the rich culture and diversity of Black voices. It was released in 2021 and has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Children's Music category. Where We Live, celebrating the arts and community leaders.

Raul Gomez-Rojas gives an overview and an update on how the Recording Inclusivity Initiative has done this year.

Raúl Gomez presents The Immigrant Story, a Portland-based, non-profit organization that documents, curates and shares stories of immigrants, in a variety of formats. Raúl's interview is also a preview of an event presented by The Immigrant Story that takes place on September 11th.

Earlier this year the Eugene Symphony teamed up with the Eugene/Springfield NAACP chapter to provide private lessons to BIPOC students.

Amy Faust hosts a show about Queer Opera, an organization dedicated to telling queer stories through opera. Founded in 2017 at Portland State University, Queer Opera is dedicated to providing a safe stage for LGBTQIA singers and allies to tell queer stories through the traditional genre of opera. Using unconventional casting methods, roles are matched with individuals based on how they identify, rather than the gender of the role or their voice type.

Transpose Community Choir and Acchord form TRANSPOSE PDX, which centers the transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming community in leadership, membership, and focus. Their mission is to empower our community by creating a brave and accountable space to expand musical skills, develop a sense of identity, and center our voices in song.

An interview with the recently-named Oregon Music Educator of the year. Violist and Pacific University Professor Dr. Djana Ihas talks about how music helped the people of Sarajevo survive the Bosnian war and how that experience changed her career path.

Andrea Murray talks with Shalanda Sims, founder of the annual Black History Festival Northwest. The month of performances, lectures and social gatherings celebrates Black Portland's present and future, as much as its past.

Portland opera and R&B-singer Onry became a viral sensation not once, but twice, last year. On this week's segment, he shares his thoughts on the purpose of art and his life as a Black opera singer in contemporary America.

The August 2020 single "Take Flight" started with a request from Grant's son's 8th-grade teacher that he write a song that parents could sing to the children during their middle-school class promotion. As he wrote, he thought about the bittersweet nature of launching our children into the world, even as we struggle to let them go. Fast forward to the summer of 2020: coronavirus descended on the world, traditional rites of passage for youth were suspended indefinitely, nationwide protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. In this challenging and painful time of re-evaluation and reckoning, Grant was moved by their emotional resilience, by their courage in the face of the pandemic, and by their demands to end racism to offer up this song and the artistic collaborations it inspired.

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation advances equity and cultural knowledge, focusing on the power of arts and collaboration to strengthen Native communities and promote positive social change with American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples in the United States.

Black History Festival NW is a Celebration of Culture and Heritage Showcasing African American artists, businesses, organizations and leaders. Through arts, education and advocacy 365 days a year, utilizing Black History Month to celebrate Black excellence, bridge gaps, amplify truth, unity, and hope in the Pacific NW.

Bridging Voices (The Portland GSA Youth Chorus) is a youth chorus for gay, straight and questioning youth, ages 13-21, and strives to be a safe, accessible place for youth to experience empowerment and unity through music. It is Portland's first Queer/Straight Alliance Youth Chorus and is one of the largest choruses of its kind, in the nation.

The Inclusive Arts Vibe Dance Company provides integrated dance classes, and is inclusive of youth with and without disabilities. Dancers aged 12-22+ have the opportunity to learn structured improvisation through DanceAbility Methodology, how to choreograph movement including creating their own solos or small ensembles, and expand their movement vocabulary through learning contemporary dance. IAVDC emphasizes individual expression of movement and building an equitable community through dance. All choreography builds on the dancers unique minds and bodies, and each dancer contributes to the choreography in their own way. Participating in Inclusive Arts Vibe is a way for young dancers to develop artistic expressions, positive identities, leadership skills, and experience a working model of social justice in the arts.

The Piano Santa Foundation is dedicated to promoting and enhancing music education for children in the Portland Metropolitan area. PSF offers a unique program including piano scholarships for students, piano placement grants for community organizations, group performance events, after school group keyboard classes and a music lending library.

PHAME is a fine and performing arts academy serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We offer three ten-week terms of arts-based classes each year, as well as many performance opportunities. Taught by talented arts education professionals, our classes include visual art, acting, choir, dance, musical theatre and many more.

The Lullaby Project – conceived by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute – uses the creative process of songwriting to improve maternal health and child bonds with pregnant women and new mothers experiencing housing insecurity and other challenging life situations. Together with musicians from the Oregon Symphony and local singer-songwriters, mothers and mothers-to-be are creating personal lullabies for their children, expressing their hopes and dreams for the future.