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So, Master Chief and Princess Zelda walk into the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall…
Welcome to our Spring Arts Guide, which begins with a trip to the symphony. Specifically, Heroes: A Video Game Symphony, which fuses music from countless video games to create a sonic journey through several decades of gaming.
For this issue, we chose to spotlight works of art that defy the limits of genres and borders to enlighten and entertain.
Take Passing Strange at Portland Playhouse, about a young Black musician’s journey to Berlin. Or Tessa Hulls’ graphic novel Feeding Ghosts, which reveals how the author’s mother was smuggled out of Communist China.
Then there’s local noise-rock band Rhododendron, whose music is a blend of math rock, jazz, sludge metal and screamo. Ungainly labels be damned, they’re blowing minds (and eardrums).
It’s still a scary time to be an artist in the Rose City, but Portlanders keep creating, trusting that audiences, readers and viewers will heed a simple but powerful call: Game on.
—Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor
