Earl Blumenauer

Earl Blumenauer appears as narrator with the Oregon Symphony, speaking the text in Copland's Lincoln Portrait as part of a program that also includes a world premiere by Gabriel Kahane and William Grant Still's Symphony No. 4. This is a spoken-word role within an orchestral program rather than a musical performance in the singing or instrumental sense.

In this program, Blumenauer takes the speaking part in Copland's Lincoln Portrait, a piece written for orchestra and a narrator who reads excerpts from Abraham Lincoln's speeches and letters over the music. Listeners can expect the orchestra to alternate between quoting old American tunes and building to full, declamatory passages that frame the spoken text. The evening also features the world premiere of Gabriel Kahane's Every Love Song Is a Protest, co-commissioned by the Oregon Symphony, and William Grant Still's Symphony No. 4, "Autochthonous," a work drawing on American musical idioms. Audiences new to Lincoln Portrait can expect the narrator's role to be plainspoken and measured rather than theatrical, letting Lincoln's own words carry the emotional weight against Copland's orchestral backdrop.