Eclectic artists coming to VCA

Lineup includes cabaret tunes from island baritone, Portland-inspired performances and Cuban jazz.

Vashon Chamber Music opens new season

The first concert of Vashon Chamber Music’s 11th season will take place at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, at Vashon Center for the Arts. The concert will open with Paul Schoenfeld’s “Cafe Music”, a jazz-inspired romp for piano, violin and cello. Vashon baritone Hugh Davis will follow with a set of cabaret songs.

Island baritone Hugh Davis will sing cabaret songs at Vashon Chamber Music’s season-opener at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27 at Vashon Center for the Arts (Courtesy Photo).

Island baritone Hugh Davis will sing cabaret songs at Vashon Chamber Music’s season-opener at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27 at Vashon Center for the Arts (Courtesy Photo).

The concert will also include Arnold Schoenberg’s Germany-between-the-wars expressionist masterpiece, “Pierrot Lunaire,” with soprano Dawn Padula, violinist Maria Sampen, flutist Jennifer Rhyne, clarinetist Mary Kantor, pianist Tanya Stambuk, conductor Anna Wittstruck and Rowena Hammill playing cello and piano.

According to Hammill, the piece is famous for its use of Sprechstimme (sing speaking).

Tickets, $10 to $25, are available in advance at vashoncenterforthearts.org.

Portland comes to Vashon

A night dubbed “Portland to Vashon” will feature performances by singer-songwriters Chris Pureka, Laura Gibson, Ara Lee James and Beth Woods, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at Vashon Center for the Arts.

Pureka is a Portland-based singer-songwriter who has earned accolades from such distinguished taste-making outlets as The New York Times, Paste, Magnet, Billboard.com and the All Music Guide. She has sold almost 50,000 albums through her own label, Sad Rabbit Records.

Gibson is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer, born and raised in Oregon. Her most recent album “Goners” is a meditation on grief and empathy which The Fader described as, “so incessantly beautiful that one cannot help but want to gently crack it open to get to its beating core.”

Texan-raised, Oregon-based singer-songwriter-poet Beth Wood has won numerous U.S. songwriting competitions and has 20 years of touring and 11 studio albums under her belt.

Beth Wood and Ara Lee James will perform in a showcase of Portland singer-songwriters at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at VCA (Mary Beth Camp Photo).

Beth Wood and Ara Lee James will perform in a showcase of Portland singer-songwriters at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at VCA (Mary Beth Camp Photo).

Appalachia-raised, Vashon-based Ara Lee James is a singer and poet who has sung professionally for more than 20 years.

The arts center is co-presenting the singers and songwriters in collaboration with islander Debra Heesch. Tickets range in price from $22 to $30 and are available through the VCA’s website.

Cuban Jazz to close out festival

Kiki Valera, an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, sound engineer and producer, will close out VCA’s presentation of the Earshot Jazz Festival at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, in the Katherine L White Hall of VCA.

Valera is known as one of the world’s best players of the Cuban cuatro, a mid-size guitar with eight strings grouped in sets of two, and one of the foremost exponents of Son Cubano, a popular Cuban musical style. Valera comes from a family of musicians whose involvement with Cuban son pre-dates the Buena Vista Social Club by decades. Tickets to his show at VCA, ranging from $10 to $30, are available at vashoncenterforthearts.org.