A Whole Bunch of Music

Sunday, October 27, 2024
3:00 pm

Hosted by Pat & John Zagelow
30 Guests • $100

The charming and talented Kenji Bunch (violin/viola) and Monica Ohuchi (piano) offer an engaging range of music in Executive Director Pat Zagelow’s welcoming NW Portland home. Add to that lavish appetizers, great conversation, and tasty drinks, and the result is a whole Bunch of fun!

Photos of previous events at the Zagelows’ home:

 

More About Kenji Bunch

Kenji Bunch uses his work as a composer and performer to look for commonalities between musical traditions, for understandings that transcend cultural or generational barriers, and for empathic connections with his listeners. Mr. Bunch draws on vernacular musical traditions, his interest in history, the natural world, and his classical training to create new concert music with a unique personal vocabulary that appeals to performers, audiences, and critics alike. After nearly three decades as a professional musician, whose work has been performed by over sixty American orchestras, by chamber musicians on six continents, and has been recorded numerous times, he considers his mission to be the continuing search for and celebration of shared emotional truths about the human experience.

Mr. Bunch maintains an active performing career, and is widely recognized for performing his own groundbreaking works for viola. In the ongoing search for fluency in other musical styles, he developed a deep interest in vernacular American music and improvisation. Mr. Bunch was the fiddle player and vocalist with the band Citigrass for over 15 years, and is a frequent collaborator with jazz, pop, folk, country, rock, and experimental musicians. He has also collaborated extensively with choreographers and filmmakers.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Bunch left New York City after 22 memorable years to return to his native Portland, Oregon, where he currently serves as Artistic Director of new music group Fear No Music, and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic.

More About Monica Ohuchi

Monica Ohuchi’s “commanding pianism” (The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini), performing “with beauty, clarity and drive…[offering a] warmth…expressiveness [that’s] irresistible and deeply moving” (The Times Argus, Vermont) allows her an active career as a piano soloist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. “Dutifully and gracefully” (San Francisco Classical Voice) attentive to musical depth and detail, Ohuchi is the pianist and Executive Director of Fear No Music, and also performs locally with Chamber Music Northwest, Classical Up Close, 45th Parallel, the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival, among many others. Ohuchi’s recent engagements include collaborations with the Oregon Ballet Theater, soloing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Marin Symphony Orchestra, Newport Symphony Orchestra. She is a frequent guest clinician and adjudicator for the Oregon State and Washington State Music Teacher Associations, as well as the Oregon state chapter of the National Federation of Music, and a regular performer on All-Classical Portland radio. Her solo album released on Helicon records label, “Monica’s Notebook”, is a series of piano Études written expressly for her by her husband, Kenji Bunch. Ohuchi is currently a Program Director at Reed College in the Performing Arts Music Division, where she also teachers piano and chamber music. Ohuchi holds advanced degrees from the Juilliard School in Piano Performance. www.monicaohuchi.com

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