Resonance Ensemble’s 18th season takes you through worlds that urge you to shift your perspective and turn your attention. Deepen your connection to one another and the natural world through stories shaped by power and the lived realities of people, animals, and entire ecosystems.
Each concert invites you to listen more closely to the world around you –and discover how the simple act of listening can, in turn, transform the world.
Welcome to SHIFT.
BRUNCH & BAD CHOICES
Saturday, September 26, 2026
11:00 am | Alberta Rose Theatre
What happens when Portland's most socially conscious classical music institution throws the rulebook out the window?
Inspired by the wildly popular Miscast format, this brunch-time fundraiser invites the singers of Resonance Ensemble to perform music they would never normally be cast to sing. Expect unexpected repertoire, surprising pairings, and joyful musical risk-taking as we SHIFT perspective—one song at a time.
Pajamas encouraged. Decorum negotiable.
Every laugh, surprise, and standing ovation helps launch Resonance Ensemble's 2026–27 season.
*Included in all season subscription packages. Brunch & Bad Choices is Resonance Ensemble's annual fundraising event. Subscribers receive complimentary admission, with opportunities to make an additional gift during the event if they wish. Single-ticket pricing increases once tickets go on sale to the general public.
CONQUEST REQUIEM
Saturday, March 13, 2027
7:30 pm | The Reser
Sunday, March 14, 2027
3:00 pm |
We sit inside histories that resist simple telling.
Resonance joins Orchestra Nova Northwest, Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland, and guest soloists to present Gabriela Lena Frank's Conquest Requiem. Both intimate and monumental, this sweeping work invites us to shift our perspective on stories we think we know. Through the figure of Malinche—an Indigenous interpreter whose role during the Spanish conquest of Mexico has been understood in profoundly different ways across generations—the work examines questions of power, identity, memory, and survival. Richly layered and emotionally compelling, Conquest Requiem reminds us that history is rarely singular and that listening deeply can reveal truths we cannot see from only one point of view.
FOR THE BIRDS
Sunday, January 31, 2027
3:00 pm | Agnes Flanagan Chapel
We listen beyond ourselves.
In partnership with Bird Alliance of Oregon, Resonance presents For the Birds, a program that invites us to reconsider music and our relationship with the natural world. Featuring our 2026–27 commissioning composer Judy A. Rose, wildlife photographer Ethan Allred, Edie Hill's poignant a cappella masterwork Spectral Spirits by Edie Hill—a tribute to endangered and extinct birds —alongside works by Caroline Shaw and others, the program explores birdsong, migration, and the fragile interconnectedness between humans and the ecosystems we inhabit.
Through music, imagery, and shared reflection, For the Birds encourages us to listen beyond human authorship—to the calls, patterns, and songs of the natural world that continue whether or not we stop to hear them.
ON THIS LAND
Sunday, June 27, 2027
3:00 pm | Agnes Flanagan Chapel
Whose land is it?
Resonance is joined by musicians of Fear No Music and Las Matices Latin Ensemble for a program that invites us to shift our understanding of land, belonging, and history. Kenji Bunch's On This Land, commissioned by Resonance Ensemble with text by Chisao Hata, reflects on the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the Pacific Northwest. Alongside Shruthi Rajasekar's Whose Names Are Unknown and Freddy Viches's Abya Yala—a multilingual choral suite created with Indigenous poets from across the Americas—these works reveal the many ways memory, identity, and place are intertwined. Together, they encourage us to listen beyond borders and consider the stories the land remembers, even when we have forgotten.