About Cascadia Composers

Mission

We engage our community through the creation, performance, and promotion of contemporary musical art, while providing resources and opportunities to composers connected with the Pacific Northwest.

Vision

All people’s lives are enriched by the music of living composers.

Cascadia Composers is a welcoming and far-reaching cooperative of living composers that promotes a kaleidoscopic cross-section of new musical art, reflecting and beautifying our modern world.

Based in Oregon and comprised of over 100 composers, this non-profit is the largest local chapter of the National Association of Composers USA, and a go-to resource within the Pacific Northwest for exciting and inspirational music. Inclusive and accessible, Cascadia Composers celebrates diversity and an expansive palette of artistic voices. Members include professionals, composer/educators and students who work in virtually every musical genre: chamber music, jazz, choral music, musical theater, electronic and electro‐acoustic music, film and game music, world music and orchestral music. Through collaborations with other performance organizations and close relationships with the region’s top performers, Cascadia Composers supports the genesis of new work with high-quality public concerts and presentations. In addition to engaging and enriching communities with the music of our time, Cascadia Composers provides valuable resources and opportunities to its members, acting as a bridge between composers and the public.

Cascadia Composers "opened the floodgates to richer, broader streams of sounds from composers of diverse ages, occupations, styles, and backgrounds, ranging from jazz-tinged sounds to electronica to classically influenced metal... From its original Portland base, the group attracted composers from throughout Oregon as well as Idaho, Illinois, and beyond."

— San Francisco Classical Voice

Oregon is a hotbed for the arts in social justice activism. As an organization that clearly represents a sense of place, Cascadia Composers is one steadfast contributor to this movement, leveraging performance platforms as a means to generate awareness and healing around difficult topics. For example, past performances include:

  • Concert of Remembrance (2017) - a collaboration with the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center / Japanese American History Museum as part of the Oregon Historical Society’s programming for the 75th anniversary of FDR’s Executive Order 9066, which uprooted American citizens of Japanese descent all over the Western US and placed them in internment camps

  • Our Waters (2018) - a collaboration with the Native American Student and Community Center led by Cynthia Gerdes with Native American artists connected to the Columbia River watershed

  • Fierce, Fabulous, and Fully Coiffed (2022 and 2023) - celebrating the multifaceted contributions that the LGBTQ+ community has made to world culture since the dawn of entertainment

Past Partners

Astoria Music Festival

Big Horn Brass

BRAVO Youth Orchestra

Chameleon Winds

Choral Arts Ensemble

Delgani String Quartet

Del Sol String Quartet

Fear No Music

In Mulieribus

Landscape Music Composers Network

Lawson Inada, former poet laureate

March Music Moderne

Native American Student and Community Center 

Native American Youth and Family Center

New Music Gathering

Nikkei Legacy Center

Oregon Historical Society

Oregon Music Teacher Association

Polish Hall

Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra

Portland Vocal Consort

Resonance Ensemble

Rose City Brass Quintet

The Ensemble