One night only!
FIERCE, FABULOUS AND FULLY COIFFED
Saturday, May 20, 2023 * Live show at 7PM (PDT)
at the First Christian Church, 1166 Oak Street, Eugene, OR 97401
Drag queens! Rants! Jazz! Tragedy! Comedy! Confetti! Double entendres!
More wigs and sequins than you’d ever thought could be gathered into one place!
Join us for a fantabulous romp celebrating the multifaceted contributions that the LGBTQ+ community has made to world culture since the dawn of entertainment!
Co-produced by the composer-performer trio of Jennifer Wright, Nicholas Yandell, and Timothy Arliss O’Brien in partnership with Cascadia Composers, Fierce combines new music and drag in a glorious extravaganza for all to take pride in!
“Fierce” features a glittering group of local drag icons, classical musicians, and performance artists in a show bubbling over with fabulousness and fresh interpretations of Queer art forms. Exploring themes of gender and identity in a variety of styles, this rainbow-drenched explosion of expression honors the struggles of the local and global LGBTQ+ communities and celebrates them in style.
It’s super fun for straights too! Fans of art music, drag, dance, song, comedy, fashion, spectacle, pixelated 80s videos, witty storytelling, and audience participation will all find lots to love. LGBTQ+ listeners can enjoy a safe and joyful space to enjoy the arts and take pride in their cultural heritage. Suitable for audiences ages 13 and older.
What’s on the roster:
Special guest appearance by Eugene’s own Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble (EDME)!! They’re up for anything, but we all wanna know: *How* difficult will they find it to play music in fabulous dresses?! Let’s find out!!
Saint Syndrome
Portland drag pianist/icon Saint Syndrome (a.k.a Marshall Cuffe) emcees, tickles the ivories, and impresses as “The Lowest Bass With the Smallest Waist”on several pieces, including the luscious, lounge-y “What Makes a Man a Man?”
Composer Daniel Vega (who has starred as Dr. Frank-n-Furter in the live Rocky Horror Picture Show at Portland’s historic Clinton Street Theater!) considers what might happen when a saxophone, live computer processing, and a whole load of banned queer books walk into a bar together.
Daniel Vega
Guest composer Lucas Marshall Smith from Ohio contributes “Always Meeting Ourselves”, which presents a deliciously ambiguous original text that can lean in any number of ways while performers consider their reflections in a multitude of mirrors.
Tartie FaLouze (Jennifer Wright)
Happily recognizing that anyone can be a woman these days, Jennifer Wright (appearing as drag personality Tartie FaLouze) has a few choice words about constructs of femininity to share in her bluesy, no-holds-barred “Rant” (the title says it all, really). She has added a new number to the “Fierce” roster in light of recent anti-gay and anti-trans events: a cheeky little opening number called “Let’s Say Gay!”
Timothy Arliss O’Brien, appearing as drag personality Tabitha Acidz, tackles some heavy stuff head-on with solo piano and spoken (and sometimes shouted!) poetic word in “Elegy for the Left Hand”.
The tongue-in-cheek “A Musical Lecture” by Nicholas Alan Yandell (appearing as drag personality The Midnight Maestro) uses everything from a theramin to a keytar to demonstrate how music can help you find yourself! And as if that wasn’t enough, he also wrote a new song for this special Eugene Edition of “Fierce”: “Ode to a Flamer”!
The grand finale is Jennifer Wright’s hilarious memoir of her cringe-worthy youthful attempts to form a coherent understanding of gender and identity growing up in the 1980s whilst surrounded by a barrage of confusing and colorful pop culture influences, entitled “(Do Ya Like My) Unicorn Trapper Keeper (Extra-Extra Extended Dance Remix).”
There will be line dancing, multiple keytars, retro pixelated video and, of course, Trapper Keepers galore!
Yandell, O’Brien and Saint Syndrome present a draggy musical “lecture”
And more more more more more, but we won’t tell you EVERYTHING now –
you’ll just have to show up and be wowed!
(Do Ya Like My) Unicorn Trapper Keeper (Extra-Extra Extended Dance Remix)
“Fierce” is a night you won’t soon forget!
Tickets: $25 general admission; $10 students.
Anyone wearing a costume gets a FREE PRIDE FLAG!
Generously supported in part by a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) and Cascadia Composers.
Composer-performer chameleon Jennifer Wright
About the lead artists
Jennifer Wright has been described as “a real force of nature” (FearNoMusic artistic director Kenji Bunch) and “[One] of [Cascadia Composers’] most creative producer/composers” (Brett Campbell, Oregon Arts Watch). She is a performer, composer, educator, multidisciplinary artist, event producer, and culture-maker. She holds two degrees in piano performance (M.M., Trinity College of Music, London, England; B.M., Hartt School of Music, Connecticut) and studied for two years at the Music Conservatory in Stuttgart, Germany. She teaches piano at Reed College and in her private piano studio in Portland, Oregon.
Jennifer’s eclectic compositions include acoustic, electroacoustic, fixed media, and found-sound works for solo instruments, voice, mixed ensembles, choir, dance, experimental instruments, and film. Much of her work features alternative keyed instruments like typewriters, toy pianos, prepared piano, amplified harpsichords, and her various deconstructed “Post-Apocalyptic Instruments”, including “The Skeleton Piano”, “The Egg” and “Chimaera”.
Jennifer’s compositions have been performed across the U.S., England, Finland and Cuba and on KGW TV and Cuban National TV by herself, FearNoMusic, Resonance Ensemble, Delgani Quartet, The Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan Orchestra, Ensemble Interactivo de la Habana, CORVUS, and many more. jenniferwrightpianostudio.com & skeletonpiano.com
Nicholas Yandell is a Portland, Oregon based composer, musician, writer, & visual artist. Musically, he specializes in composing contemporary classical concert works, film scores, post-rock, and electronic music. He has composed or collaborated on a number of scores for short films and film projects and has had works performed by the Delgani String Quartet, cellist Marilyn De Olivera, the Iridescence Piano Flute Duo, the Madrona Viola Duo, and pianist Dianne Davies, as well as numerous performances through Cascadia Composers. In 2019, he had the honor of being one of the four composers commissioned by 45th Parallel to set the poetry of Micah Fletcher to music and performed with the Pyxis Quartet and percussionist Sergio Carreno at their “I Spat in the Eye of Hate and Lived” concert. He holds a Masters of Music Composition and a Bachelor of Music from Five Towns College in Dix Hills, NY, and was named the 2020 Composer of the Year by the Oregon Music Teachers Association. In all his creative works, Nicholas delves deeply into subjects such as mental health, psychology, spirituality and perseverance, with an ultimately hopeful outlook, woven into strongly comprehensible narratives. As a queer person, he also uses creativity to express his struggles with identity and sexuality as well as his own personal journey to acceptance.
Married composers couple Nicholas Yandell and Timothy Arliss O’Brien
Timothy Arliss O’Brien is an interdisciplinary artist in music composition, writing, and visual arts. His goal is to connect people to accessible new music that showcases virtuosic abilities without losing touch of authentic emotions. He has premiered music with The Astoria Music Festival, Cascadia Composers, Sound of Late’s 48 hour Composition Competition and ENAensemble’s Serial Opera Project. Timothy also wants to produce writing that connects the reader to themselves in a way that promotes wonder and self realization. He has self published several novels (Dear God I’m a Faggot, They), and has written for Look Up Records (Seattle), Our Bible App, and Deep Overstock: The Bookseller’s Journal. His full discography, Where Are WE?, Piano Memories, Fear Sides and Soundbath, on all streaming platforms. Website: timothyarlissobrien.com Instagram: @adorableinpdx @tabithaacidz @thepoetheroic