Redfish Music Festival returns for fall concert series

PORT ORFORD, Ore. — The Redfish Music Festival is back with an all-new fall concert series.

When we last checked in with the Redfish Music Festival, they were announcing an early wrap to their summer concert series.

But now, they’re kicking off the third year of the nonprofit festival with a fall concert series, this weekend.

“The origin of the word chamber music means music to be played in a room, in a chamber. And playing in the concert hall doesn’t have quite the same feeling as playing for a room of people that are, you know, wrapped, and you know, really into like listening to the music.” Pianist Genevieve Lee said, expressing that the intimate settings of these concerts are what makes them so special to her as a musician.

“We feel like we have such a good rapport with those folks who are coming out to support us” Andrew Smith plays cello in the trio, and is part of the faculty that works with the students during the summer concert series. “It feels like family to us, it’s like a second home.”

When asked about his experience teaching those students who travel from all over the country to perform in the festival, Smith spoke very highly of the young musicians.

“We could not possibly have found a better group of kids, they were eager, they were really fun.”

Smith added for some of the students, it offers a glimpse into a possible career. “We saw a lot of them kind of grow up a little bit.”

For their fall concert series, the Redfish Piano Trio will kick off the weekend at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 2nd at the Zion Lutheran Church at 2015 Washington Street, Port Orford.

Saturday’s 2 p.m. performance will be in Crescent City, California at the Cultural Center located at 1001 Front Street.

The last chance to catch the trio will be on Sunday, December 4th, at 2 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in North Bend.

“Three concerts, three days, all the way up and down the Southern Oregon coast, we’re going to enjoy seeing the beautiful coastline.” Festival director and violinist, Fritz Gearhart is back to perform in the trio with Lee and Smith.

The Redfish Piano Trio will be performing works from Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, and Ernst Bloch.

Gearhart mentioned Bloch’s historic connection to Oregon. The Swiss-born composer became a U.S. citizen in 1924, then in 1952 Bloch and his wife retired in Newport.

Bloch was one of the founders of the Music Academy of the West, in Montecito, California.

Tickets for each performance can be purchased for $20 either at the door or ahead of time on Eventbrite.