Opening the doors of Lincoln Hall

While the corridors of Lincoln Hall are always filled with the sounds of musically inclined Portland State students, anyone who has heard a melody drifting through the halls or walked by a dedicated music major strumming her guitar outside on a sunny day knows that these musical snippets don’t quite deliver the full experience.

RIZA LIU/Vanguard staff

Practice makes perfect: Portland State violinists run through their songs at a recent orchestra rehearsal.

Music Forward! is a chance to remedy this, with a jazzy holiday celebration showcasing the music department’s talents on Nov. 30.

“We’re opening the doors of Lincoln,” said PSU jazz professor Darrell Grant, who is also the chair of the Music Forward! committee. Grant, who will be performing with other faculty and students, hopes that the event will become an annual tradition.

“[Music Forward!] tells the story of our music department,” Grant said.

The department is injecting festive arrangements and classic holiday tunes into the show, but Music Forward! isn’t your average winter concert. It features myriad different classical and jazz performances from students, professors and musicians from the community.

Music Forward! pushes the department’s boundaries by mixing in some unlikely pairings and arrangements. Operatic renditions of 20th-century Christmas tunes, newly formed wind octets and even the Taiko Ensemble come together to create a show that embodies the spirit of Portland’s music scene.

“We want people to appreciate the breadth of music PSU has to offer,” Grant said.

Grant and the rest of the department value the influx of students bringing new life to Lincoln Hall. The School of Fine and Performing Arts is the fastest-growing school at PSU, and the music department has benefitted greatly from this expansion as the number of music majors and minors has doubled.

The program is now the largest in the Oregon University System, and has the ability to provide important opportunities to the musicians within it.

“We want to do more,” Grant said. While 10 percent of music students are already on scholarship, the goal of Music Forward! is to increase that number. All of the event’s profits will go toward providing more scholarships for the music program. Some of these scholarship students will present their talents by performing solos during the event.

“It’s really cool to see what [the scholarships] can do for the students,” Grant said. “From someone having one job instead of three to a student finding something they love to do, like teaching.”

Investing in its future has helped PSU attract a talented and diverse population of musicians. There is no better representation of this community than the blog dedicated to the event.

On Music Forward: The Journey Beyond Lincoln Hall (putmusicforward.wordpress.com), the department spreads the message of the upcoming event while showcasing different alumni who use various music degrees for a variety of life experiences, or, in the site’s own words, “a blog about how PSU music grads are making a difference in music and the world.”

These alumni, featured in the site’s profile segment “30 for the 30th,” are examples of the dedication the music department puts into its students and the department’s pride in the students’ accomplishments.

PSU’s musical legacy is predicated on providing opportunities, and Music Forward! is a celebration of a department that is dedicated to teaching and showcasing its students—with a goal of increasing those opportunities for years to come.

“We want to show how far the reach of our music extends,” Grant said.