The Social Power of Music with Jeff Place

Name: Meow Meow and Thomas Lauderdale
Start: 2019-3-25T18-18-30-00
End: 2019-3-25T23-23-55-00
Location: Lincoln Theatre

Brandon WetherbeeMarch 1, 2019

BYT RadioInterviewsMusic 11 min read

Jeff Place is the Curator and Senior Archivist of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. They recently released the The Social Power of Music box set. A chat about building that box, the speed of Woody Guthrie records and how to get this dream job.

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25mar6:30 pmMeow Meow and Thomas Lauderdale6:30 pm Lincoln Theatre

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Post-post-modern diva Meow Meow has hypnotized, inspired, and terrified audiences globally. The spectacular crowd-surfing queen of song had her New York Pops debut in 2015 at Forest Hills Stadium with Pink Martini, and her London Philharmonic debut in 2013 as Jenny in Brecht/Weill’s Die Dreigroschenoper in Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and London’s Royal Festival Hall. She sold out her Lincoln Center American Songbook Series and Sydney Opera House concerts, toured the concert halls of Australia with Barry Humphries and the Australian Chamber Orchestra singing 1920‘s works from Weimar Germany, and in 2014 performed contemporary opera with the LA Philharmonic in Andriessen’s De Materie and for Pina Bausch Company with their Fest für Pina 40 season in Germany, followed by an extended season of the award-winning original music comedy work Feline Intimate in London at the Southbank Centre and again a critically acclaimed season at London’s Southbank with her Apocalypse Meow. Meow starred on London’s West End in Kneehigh Theatre and Michel Legrand’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and in her own solo concerts at the legendary Apollo Theatre. David Bowie, Pina Bausch and Mikhail Baryshnikov are amongst her curators, and she has created works for festivals from Shanghai to Wroclaw as well as performing everything from Schubert and Schumann with orchestra to touring with punk outfit Amanda Palmer and The Dresden Dolls.

Named One of the Top Performers of the Year by the New Yorker, multi-award winning Meow Meow has been called “Sensational” (the Times UK), “diva of the highest order” (New York Post), “The Queen of Chanson” by the Berliner Zeitung, and “a phenomenon” by the Australian press. She opened Berkeley Rep’s 2014 season with the new music theatre work An Audience with Meow Meow. Upcoming: Brecht/Weill’s Die Sieben Todsünden for Orchestra Victoria, and further collaborations with the Australian Chamber Orchestra from Slovenia to Sydney Opera House, further performances with Oregon Symphony , with Pink Martini and the London Philharmonic. Meow’s albums Vamp and Songs from a Little Match Girl are available on iTunes. meowmeowrevolution.com

THOMAS M. LAUDERDALE (piano)

Thomas Lauderdale was raised on a plant nursery in rural Indiana. He began piano lessons at age six with Patricia Garrison. When his family moved to Portland in 1982, he began studying with Sylvia Killman, who to this day continues to serve as his coach and mentor. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Oregon Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Chamber Music Northwest and Oregon Ballet Theatre (where he collaborated with choreographer James Canfield and visual artists Storm Tharp and Malia Jensen on a ballet based on Felix Salten’s Bambi, written in 1923).

In 2008, he played Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Christoph Campestrini. Lauderdale returned as soloist with the Oregon Symphony in multiple concerts in 2011, and again in 2015, under the direction of Carlos Kalmar. In 2017, he and his partner Hunter Noack created and performed a dazzling, rhapsodic two-piano arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with choreographer Nicolo Fonte for Oregon Ballet Theatre.

Active in Oregon politics since a student at U.S. Grant High School (where he was student body president), Thomas served under Portland Mayor Bud Clark and Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt. In 1991, he worked under Portland City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury on the drafting and passage of the city’s civil rights ordinance. He graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in History and Literature in 1992. He spent most of his collegiate years, however, in cocktail dresses, taking on the role of “cruise director” … throwing waltzes with live orchestras and ice sculptures, disco masquerades with gigantic pineapples on wheels, midnight swimming parties, and operating a Tuesday night coffeehouse called Café Mardi.

Instead of running for political office, Lauderdale founded Pink Martini in 1994 to play political fundraisers for progressive causes such as civil rights, the environment, affordable housing and public broadcasting. In addition to his work with Pink Martini, Lauderdale is currently working on three different recording projects with international superstar and singing sensation Meow Meow, the surf band Satan’s Pilgrims and singer/civil rights leader Kathleen Saadat.

In Spring 2008, Lauderdale completed his first film score for Chiara Clemente’s documentary Our City Dreams, a portrait of five New York City-based women artists of different generations. In 2016, Lauderdale created the score and three featured songs for the Belgian film Souvenir, starring the legendary French actress Isabelle Huppert.

Lauderdale currently serves on the boards of the Oregon Symphony, Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Oregon Historical Society, Confluence Project with Maya Lin and the Derek Rieth Foundation. He lives with his partner Hunter Noack in downtown Portland, Oregon.