We're Raising Fun! Fri, Feb 21st ~ Kate Morrison & David Captein! Sat, Feb 22nd ~ 3 Leg Torso

KATE MORRISON

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Kate began vocal training during junior high school, studying throughout high school and college in the Pacific Northwest. Performing in competitions for classical vocal music, she placed among the top vocalists in the State of Oregon and won many awards, including the coveted National Arion Award for Music. 

After living in Walla Walla, WA, for more than 20 years, Kate moved to Portland, OR, and co-founded Kate & The Crocodiles. She performs shows with small groups and has been an invited guest soloist with myriad groups, most recently including Pink Martini. 

Kate is also a freelance graphic artist and teaches Ukulele at Montavilla Guitar Studio.

DAVID CAPTEIN

David Captein, a Portland native, has performed on both string bass and bass guitar for over 35 years. A music graduate of Western Washington University and the University of Washington, he’s appeared in a range of venues, including symphonic performances, studio and clubs and jazz concerts and festivals around the country and in Europe. 

Dave has worked with many jazz artists including Wynton Marsalis, Dick Hyman, Ken Peplowski, Steve Allen and Paul Smith, Bill Mays, Jeff Lorber, Benny Green and local luminaries such as Ron Steen, Mel Brown, Dan Balmer and Gary Hobbs and Rebecca Kilgore. He’s also played on numerous local artists’ CD’s, as well as nationally distributed releases by Tom Grant and Jessica Williams. 

Dave is a longtime music instructor, having taught at the University of Oregon for 10 years and now at Lewis and Clark College.

TAFT JAZZ BAND

The 16 member jazz band under the direction of Taft 7-12 Music Director Mike Freel, has captured second place in State Competition at Mt. Hood in 2018 and 2019!

                      3 Leg Torso's  album  And to All a Good Night was awarded the 2016 

                          Album of the Year by the Oregon Music Hall of Fame

                                  "I love 3 Leg Torso, it blows the top off my head!" 

                                                             Teller, of Penn & Teller

Formed in 1996 as a violin, cello and accordion trio with the mission of creating original modern chamber music for their unique instrumentation. The ensemble has expanded to become a quartet that now performs original compositions based on an eclectic synthesis of chamber music, tango, klezmer, latin, and Roma (Gypsy) music. As principal composers, founding members Béla R. Balogh (violin, trumpet, octave mandolin) and Courtney Von Drehle (accordion, saxophone) provide the core of 3 Leg Torso's sound. They are joined by the consummate mallets & percussion of T.J. Arko and the gentleman of the acoustic bass, Bill Athens.

The ensemble's history began with street performances, which they titled Meestering and has led to their releasing three award winning instrumental albums (3 Leg Torso, Astor in Paris, and Animals & Cannibals), East Coast and West Coast Tours, performances with symphony orchestras and a profile on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

          3 Leg Torso makes the greatest music you could ever put in a movie"

                                       Morgan Spurlock, Director, SuperSize Me

The cinematic nature of their music has led to work with many film makers, including Oscar nominated documentary artist Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), three short films with Teller (of Penn & Teller), two short films by Academy Award winning animator Joan Gratz The Dowager's Feastand The Dowager's Idyll, scoring With Hope and Help, a UNICEF funded documentary about living with AIDS in Thailand, and a feature in Oscar nominated King of Indie Animation Bill Plympton's Idiots & Angels. One of the ensemble's pieces has been used as the theme music for a Bosnian Television series, and the group's music was also featured in the 2012 National Geographic special Preparing for the Apocalypse. In 2003, accordionist Courtney Von Drehle was awarded a fellowship at the Sundance Film Composer's Lab, and in 2010, his work on the Oscar nominated documentary The Final Inch was nominated for an Emmy Award.

             ''Astonishing musicianship, timeless yet wholly original song craft. 

                                   3 Leg Torso is a unique American treasure''

                                                            Steve Berlin, Los Lobos

3 Leg Torso has a full concert set of arrangements for symphony orchestra, which has brought them together for sold out performances with the Central Oregon Symphony, Rogue Valley Symphony, Newport Symphony Orchestra, Beaverton Symphony, Portland Festival Symphony, Pacific Crest Wind Symphony, and Metropolitan Youth Symphony.  Composers Balogh and Von Drehle were commissioned to write a full-length piece, Sinfonia Misterioso, to celebrate the Metropolitan Youth Symphony's 35th anniversary gala concert.