Oregon Arts Watch: All Classical On the Move

Oregon Arts Watch
By Brett Campbell

Portland’s ambitious, forward-looking classical music radio station is expanding its scope, creating space for live performances, and relocating to downtown Portland.

The term “classical music radio” suggests revered, decades-old recordings of music by familiar, long-dead composers. You wouldn’t expect to associate it with 21st century music, Oregon performers and composers, young audiences, or, really, innovation. But while Portland’s All Classical radio’s airwaves and internet streams still abound with recordings of Old Masters, and likely always will, the station has lately been going way beyond its increasingly inaccurate name. 

And now, as its 40th anniversary approaches, the “independent, community-funded radio station and multimedia platform” (to use its own description) is moving even farther afield — literally. It’s crossing the Rubicon, or at least the Willamette, relocating its operations from the Portland Opera building on the east bank to an office tower in the heart of downtown Portland, and creating new, state-of-the-art production studios for broadcast, video, recordings, and live performances of music and theater by Oregon artists. Construction is underway, with the move-in expected in early 2024.

Read more here.