SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
monica: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
‘monica’ is songwriter Caitlyn Faircloth’s melancholy dream of electric guitars and dusty amplifiers. This project lingers in sleepy, asymmetrical indie rock using soft, lonely melodies to create a nostalgic soundscape for listeners. Caitlyn lives in Quilcene, WA on the Olympic Peninsula.
Lou Trove is the nom de plume for Adam Torres’ new experimental electronic music project, which prominently features the sounds and textures of digital mellotron flute to narrative incisive compositions inspired by precious geologic formations from the Earth’s core. Aesthetically and thematically sparkly, Lou Trove makes music for meditation, hearing as seeing, and as a portal to depart upon adventures of the imagination.
“Barn Rave, 2011” by Tori Wheeler
ON VIEW
JULY 27 2023 – OCTOBER 12 2023
Tufted, and interactive artwork, Barn Rave, 2011 encapsulates the frenetic, feral exchange of energy found in a packed dance floor. The modular work recalls a night in a remote barn outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Its tessellated pieces intertwine, forming a hazy, abstracted scene of kids drenched in sweat, a barn filled with fog, hay, pulsating music, and a mix of suspicious substances. This ephemeral experience imprints neural pathways.
The puzzle-like components and imagery pay homage to a transformative and hedonistic celebration of youthful exuberance. The liberated sensuality and sometimes-brainlessness of infectious bassy beats become the unyielding desires to relinquish the burdens and constraints of adolescence in small town surroundings. The pieces move and connect, at times surpassing a perfect fit. Capturing the raw energy of dancing amidst others. Capturing unbridled energy. Their arrangement allows for infinite reconfigurations—a reflection of the ever-shifting nature of the dance floor.
Tori Wheeler is an artist, designer, and dancer whose work is influenced by ecstatic human exchange, touch and tactility, music-and-nature-induced-trance-states, and a dash of trickster humor. Their creative practice mirrors that of a desire path.
Tori holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from the Kansas City Art Institute and works as a textile artist, gold leaf gilder, and fairweather graphic designer.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
Blair Borax: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Blair Borax is a singer-songwriter who writes tender folk-pop songs to make you feel less alone.
With vocal stylings reminiscent of 1920s jazz, songwriting that is unafraid to tackle the taboo, and pop melodies that stay with you for days, Blair Borax has something special to offer. She conjures a vocal charm somewhere in between Regina Spektor and First Aid Kit, wordsmithing inspired by folk songwriting greats like John Prine, and moody vulnerability like Haley Heynderickx and Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker.
After releasing her first EP ‘everything is light work’ in May of 2021, Blair released her debut album “Keep Walking” in June 2022. “Keep Walking” will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, through the stages of anger, grief, and joy beyond trauma and heartache. It is the perfect companion to help you keep walking too. She is working on her sophomore record, “Tender Lately” this year.
Hemlock
Live at The Sou’wester Lodge
Rebecca Sanborn began writing songs at age six, starting an early pattern of straying creatively from sheet music. Her piano instructor taught her to write the music down, which seemed like a magical power. She also fell in love with theatre and writing, pursuing all of these arts with equal passion. Rebecca got her first agent at age ten and landed starring roles in commercials. One director hired her on the spot because she had a voice “like Lauren Bacall”. In High School she would wake at 5 am to jump rope in the driveway and then pound out short works of fiction on the typewriter in the garage so as not to wake anyone. The love affair with stories and music continued and at eighteen, she left her native Portland, Oregon to study at The College of Santa Fe, in New Mexico—majoring in Theatre and immersing herself in the free, unpredictable world of the Contemporary Music Program. Every Thursday night a Forum was held where new music was emphatically encouraged. Rebecca had found her home. She studied under the experimental composers Joseph Weber and Peter Gordon and was moulded by Martha Graham’s personal demonstrator, Juanita Barry, in rigorous modern dance classes for four years.
Upon returning to the Northwest after college, Rebecca met her husband and musical partner, drummer Ji Tanzer. They are both members of the adventurous jazz quintet, Blue Cranes, the art pop trio, Swansea, and Portland’s veteran indie group, Loch Lomond. Rebecca and Ji also starred in the film “Light of Mine”, which garnered a coveted spot at the A.F.I. Fest in 2011. “Light of Mine” was the only independent film from The States to be included in the festival. Rebecca plays in the all-female, cape-wearing, fog-machine-loving synth trio, Eccoh Eccoh Eccoh with Kyleen King (Brandi Carlile) and Jenny Conlee-Drizos (The Decemberists).
In 2021, Rebecca was invited to write an original set of music for the Montavilla Jazz Fest—composing and arranging eight songs in two months. She performed these tunes with her long-time mentor and hero, pianist Randy Porter, bassist Jon Shaw, and of course, Ji Tanzer. The work now stands as a collective entitled “Shadow Work”. Several pieces have since been arranged by Douglas Detrick, and were performed at the 2022 Montavilla Jazz Fest with the 12-piece Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble as a part of “The Heroine’s Journey” – an evening with Marilyn Keller, Darrell Grant, and Rebecca Sanborn. In 2023, Rebecca was awarded a RACC grant to record “Shadow Work”.
Throughout all of the years of hard touring and performing, Rebecca never lost touch with the written word. She earned a spot in the highly competitive Tin House Winter Workshop in 2016, mentoring under Mitchell S. Jackson. She has completed five novels and continues to work on her literary, musical, or theatrical craft on a daily basis. When Rebecca isn’t engaged in art or teaching, she can be found chasing after her costume-obsessed five-year-old daughter or trying to get some sleep.
Olivia Awbrey Live
Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Olivia Awbrey is a weathered songwriter based out of Oregon. Her debut full-length album, Dishonorable Harvest, gained international recognition amongst independent music enthusiasts and earned her a spot at festivals across the Northwest and in Canada. Flood Magazine notes that, “each of Awbrey‘s songs is an intricate story in itself.” An old-soul folk musician with a modern indie lens, Awbrey reflects on nuanced perspectives within conflict, drawing from the buttressing of urban and rural settings, searching for an honest moment that cuts through the noise of assumptions. She recently began pressing vinyl by hand. Her next album is forthcoming.
Live at The Sou’wester
LIVE AT THE SOU’WESTER
Lindsay Clark
Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Lindsay Clark finds balance between traditional folk, English folk, country and her own version of experimental folk that seems to come from within. With influences ranging from the Beach Boys, Elizabeth Cotton, Joni Mitchell, Appalachian folk, her classical upbringing and her father’s record collection, she blends many worlds into a uniquely warm sound. She has carved out a unique and vibrant place as an artist with her penchant for poetry, rich harmony and a style of self-taught fingerpicking influenced by Nick Drake, John Fahey, and others.
Originally from the small gold rush town of Nevada City, CA, she now resides in Portland, OR. She has shared the stage with musicians such as Alela Diane, Adam Torres, Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors), Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom), Jolie Holland, and Michael Hurley. Her sound has been described as “folk with angelic vocals washing over smooth edges” (1859 Magazine), with her recent album Carpe Noctem called “stunning” by NPR Music. The album features William Tyler, Alela Diane, Sage Fisher (Dolphin Midwives), & Andy Rayborn (Paper Gates) and was engineered, co-produced, co-arranged with Jeremy Harris (Fruit Bats / Hand Habits). She has also recently contributed to Michael Hurley’s latest release, Time of the Foxgloves.
Live at The Sou’wester
Nick Jaina
Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Nick Jaina is a musician and author living with his wife and stepson in Oakland, California. He has published three books, released over a dozen albums, produced several ballets, and composed various film scores. He teaches writing workshops online and in person, and hosts magical tea services that involve music, reading, and color immersion. He was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in 2015. He has collaborated with dancers from the New York City Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theater.