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PerformingArtsReview

Welcome to Performing Arts Reviews – The Performing Arts Reviews website presents an extensive set of reviews of theatrical plays and musicals, of live music concerts and recitals spanning a wide range of genres from classical to jazz to pop to country and more, of films shown at festivals and special events, and of various other performing arts events, presented in the numerous performing arts venues in Southern Oregon.

The focus here is on performing arts in Southern Oregon. Of course, Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, despite its rural surroundings, offers an extraordinary variety of exceptional quality performing arts. Among other notable performing arts offerings, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which is based in Ashland, may well be the finest venue presenting theatrical productions outside of NYC’s Broadway theaters. (In case you weren’t aware, the 2014 Broadway Tony Award for Best Play went to the OSF commissioned and produced drama, All The Way, which premiered in Ashland.) But OSF does not have a monopoly on theatrical stages in Southern Oregon, and there are many other venues producing quality theatrical entertainment in the area, including the Camelot Theatre in Talent, OR, the Oregon Cabaret Theatre and the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU in Ashland, the Craterian Theater and the Randall Theater Company in Medford, and more.

The Rogue Valley also hosts the summer long Britt Festivals music concerts, which include a series of Classical Festival concerts populated by leading musicians from major orchestras throughout the United States and the world, and directed by the youngest music conductor (Teddy Abrams) currently leading a major city orchestra (the Louisville Symphony). Of course, the Britt Festivals also presents around 40 other concerts by well-known nationally touring pop, country, jazz, folk and other genre artists.

But again, the Britt Festivals doesn’t even begin to represent the full extent of the wonderful variety and number of producers of superior music performances in Southern Oregon, which include the Rogue Valley Symphony directed by the gifted European born and educated conductor, Martin Majkut, the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band, the Ashland City Band, the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra and a full compliment of choral organizations, including Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, the Rogue Valley Chorale, Siskiyou Singers, and the Kirby Shaw led Jefferson State Choral Coalition, among others.

There are also a variety of notable organizations bringing leading national and international touring musicians and ensembles to perform in Southern Oregon, including the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU‘s Tutunov Piano Series, the Chamber Music Concerts organization, the Jackson County Community Concert Association, and the Siskiyou Music Project,  to name just a few.

If you really want a sense of the state of performing arts in Southern Oregon, you just have to peruse a fair sampling of the multitude of reviews on this site.