Publications from The Oregonian to The New Yorker have been writing articles lately about how to get one’s classical music fix on a tight budget. I’ve read many of these with interest because, well, as a freelance writer with a part-time day job, I need all the financial assistance I can get to keep this [...]

Even among classical neophytes like myself, Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians is a work that is talked about in hushed, reverent tones. Its influence has been felt far and wide over the musical spectrum, with artists as disparate as Talking Heads and Orbital showing the imprint of the work’s dense polyrhythms.
So, I wasn’t [...]

For the entirety of 2009, Willamette Week freelancer Robert Ham is going to focus much of his attention on classical music in an effort to learn as much as he can about it but also to gain some insight into why it has become so inaccessible to common folk like you and me.
The title [...]