Think Oregon

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Bill Rauch: Stage Director

The word that pops up again and again when people talk about Bill Rauch is “passionate.” In the six years since joining the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as artistic director, Rauch, 50, has brought his passion, experience and considerable energy to Ashland. This earned him many awards— including the Zelda Fichandler Award in 2012 for “transforming the regional arts landscape through imaginative, brave work in theater.” Under his direction, OSF has expanded its playbill to include classic musicals, global classics from diverse cultures and contemporary work, including plays commissioned by the festival. His brainchild, the ambitious and popular “American Revolutions: the U.S. History Cycle,” envisions thirty-seven new works capturing moments of change in American history. Now in its fourth year, American Revolutions introduces The Liquid Plain, which has already won the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for a promising new American play. Co-founder of Cornerstone Theater Company in 1986, Rauch spent twenty…

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Tony Furtado: Musician

A child prodigy of the banjo, California-born Tony Furtado won national bluegrass competitions as a teenager. The first time he played before a live audience, he says, “I heard the applause, the energy of the crowd, and it was like a drug.” He left college at 19 to join a band. “I love playing live music,” Furtado says. “It’s something that’s always stirred my soul.” His versatility on banjo, acoustic and electric slide guitars ranges from classic folk songs of the 1930s, to Tom Petty and original work. “I love a wellcrafted melody and soulful lyrics,” he says, having added singer-songwriter to his many musical credits. His sixteenth and most recent recording was captured in 2011 in Portland, “Live at Mississippi Studios.” This performance encapsuled his energetic, funloving style of play, as well as his banter with the audience and other musicians. That love of live performance has put him…

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David Logsdon: Brewer

David Logsdon discovered yeast while in college. No, in a good way. At Mt. Hood Community College in the late 1970s, Logsdon studied food science and fermentation. Disappointed with beers on the West Coast, the native Ohioan began home brewing. His first was a stout, which he had just finished before his father, brought up in the Midwestern lager tradition, visited. The elder tasted the dark liquid and then declared, ‘Well it’s not beer, but it’s not bad,’ says Logsdon. So began Logsdon’s lifelong specialization with beer’s key ingredient—yeast. He continued to experiment with yeast and beer, before the industry was well developed. “The first hops I found were at G.I. Joes on the shelf in a brown paper bag,” Logsdon recalls. “They were as brown as the paper bag.” At the same time, Logsdon started collecting yeast strains from breweries and began culturing his own brewer’s yeast. By 1985,…

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Anna Fritz’s The Gospel of Tree Bark

Anna Fritz wrote most of her new album, “The Gospel of Tree Bark,” in a little cabin in the coastal mountains of Southern Oregon with only the birds and the water from nearby creeks to lull her to sleep. Sounds like an album for a bunch of pagan back-to the-land-types, right? Maybe… but she grows so far past this parody both lyrically and musically on “Bark,” that she might be spending more time in the spotlight this year than she anticipated.

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Dogs for the Deaf

Oregon nonprofit Dogs for the Deaf rescues dogs and betters the lives of the hearing impaired.

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Beyond the Oregon Trail

Sue Alperin has put together a new, alternative history curriculum that sheds light on Oregon’s checkered racial past.

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Best Band

Winner: Pink Martini Pink Martini may be Oregon’s own homegrown band but its music, lyrics and fans are global. Thomas Lauderdale, a classically trained pianist, founded the group in 1994. Shortly thereafter, he teamed up with Harvard classmate and vocalist, China Forbes, to write songs. It was a fortuitous pairing as their first song, “Sympathique,” became an overnight sensation in France, where it was nominated for song of the year. Since then, the ten- to twelve-member petite orchestra has recorded six studio albums in thirteen languages on its own label, Heinz Records (named for Lauderdale’s dog). Its worldwide sales have topped two million. “A Retrospective,” released in 2011, is a mélange of old favorites and unreleased tracks. The band recently completed a tour of Japan with singer Saori Yuki and is currently performing throughout the United States and Europe, including at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops. In April…