Portland Cello Project Turns 10

Get tix: http://bit.ly/PCelloPschn2016 Tickets on sale Friday, 8/12 @ 10AM Exclusive presale Thursday, 8/11 from 10-5 w/ password MONQUI All Ages All Golden Circle ticket holders receive a free CD of their choice at the merchandise table night of show. Portland Cello Project celebrate their 10th anniversary in style at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall featuring collaborative special guests Nancy Ives (Principal Cellist of the Oregon Symphony) and Farnell Newton (Othership Funk, PDX Jazz Project). In the fall of 2006 a group of 10 cellists got on stage at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge. Many believed this would be a one-time event. The idea behind the show – traditionally western classical music in a venue that encourages inebriation – followed in a what had become a popular trend of playing classical music in non-traditional venues (like bars and nightclubs). The repertoire strayed a little from the classical trend by featuring cello ensemble collaborations with some of the group’s members’ other projects (Tony Rogers’ group The Ahs, and Douglas Jenkins’ group Bright Red Paper). Slowly that one-off event became a second, and a third, playing Portland’s popular clubs: Mississippi Studios, Holocene, Berbati’s Pan. By 2009 the group evolved into a nationally recognized touring group, releasing full-length albums, one on the Kill Rock Stars Label. Portland Cello Project began to famously play in as diverse an assortment of venues as possible: punk rock clubs in towns like Fargo North Dakota, summertime loading dock street parties, and symphony halls everywhere from Anchorage to NYC. While the group changed and evolved in a hundred different ways over the last decade and amassed a repertoire of over 1,000 pieces of music, 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.