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!
Kelli Schaefer: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
A few years disappeared into the forest of a global pandemic, but Kelli Schaefer and her brand new band trod through a new record this year, and it is expected to leap from the woods in 2023. With two full-length records and two EP’s already under her belt, her new record is another pivot in stylistic choice. This time, with a fresh take on the age-old singer-songwriter trope, Schaefer delivers haunting melodies over swirling woodwinds, piano, classical guitar, and upright bass. These songs could be the soundtrack to a modern gothic, a playlist for a trudge through the forest, the accompaniment to a subconscious mantra. As expected, Schaefer again demonstrates her refusal to confine herself to a single genre. Along with her bandmates Andrew Jones (bass), Ayal Alvez (piano, keys), Joey Binhammer (guitar), Schaefer is working to finish the record and planning tour steadily in the foreseeable future. The record was recorded live at Color Therapy with Ryan Oxford (Y La Bamba) and mixed by Alex Bush (Damien Jurado).
Crowey: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
What began as the solo project of Joey Binhammer (Die Geister Beschwören, Elektrokraken, Meeping, Whales Wailing), Crowey has grown into a psychedelic/folk soundscape project and collaboration between Joey and Kate Kilbourne (Mordecai, June Rose Band, Sweeping
Exits). Both multi-instrumentalists from Portland, OR, the duo crafts sweeping vistas of finger-style guitar, strings and vocal harmonies, exploring the deep well of human emotion and finding beauty in its darkest crevices. Layers of intricate orchestration evoke the sound of moving clouds.
Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Brad Parsons is a singer-songwriter/multi-
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.
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
