Two Portland ensembles have turned the city into an unlikely capital of very old music, performed very much alive. Cappella Romana, founded in 1991, is North America’s leading vocal ensemble for Byzantine and Slavic chant — its concerts in candlelit Portland churches feel like time travel, and its recordings top classical charts.
Portland Baroque Orchestra, playing on period instruments since 1984, brings Bach, Handel and Vivaldi crackling into the present, with a beloved annual Messiah and collaborations that stretch from jazz to folk. Both groups record, tour and teach — Cappella Romana’s work even reunites medieval chant with the Hagia Sophia’s acoustics through Stanford research.
In Portland, “early music” means music that still moves people to tears in 900-year-old harmonies. Goosebumps guaranteed.
