Live Music Serves as Key Component of Eugene’s Thriving Arts Scene
arts, college town, culture, cuthbert amphitheatre, eugene cultural policy review committee, eugene's arts organizations and venues, hult center for the performing arts, jethro tull, mcdonald theatre, musicians,
A college town can be expected to have its share of local bands and the venues to showcase them, but Eugene shines by producing a growing list of successful musicians and routinely drawing national acts to perform in halls both small and large.
In fact, the local music scene was examined in a cultural policy review recently completed by the city. A committee performed an exhaustive study of all the city’s arts organizations and venues, with an eye toward increasing public involvement. The group turned over its findings to city leaders in July 2007.
Live performance emerged as a key component to the city’s larger arts picture, says Tina Rinaldi, program manager of the arts and administration graduate program at the University of Oregon and a chair of the Eugene Cultural Policy Review Committee.
“This is absolutely a solid music town,” Rinaldi says. “We broke things down into areas like stage and music, and also facility reviews. We have a lot of visual and performing arts organizations across the community, but we also wanted to take an inventory of all our cultural facilities.”
On the music front, that inventory is extensive. Larger venues such as the McDonald Theatre, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, Shedd Institute for the Arts, Cuthbert Amphitheatre and WOW Hall routinely bring in top-name artists. Among those who have played, – or currently are scheduled to play – these and other high-profile venues include: G. Love & Special Sauce, George Jones, Todd Snider and Jethro Tull.
And that is before even examining the local clubs near campus, downtown and throughout the city, which provide an outlet for established bands and also serve as a breeding ground for new talent.
In fact, the report sent to the city council said that, overall, “The range and diversity of arts and culture in Eugene is breathtaking … the city boasts a mix of arts, culture and entertainment that goes well beyond what one would expect in a city of 150,000 people.”
With a solid base of venues to work from and with, the city now will begin strategizing ways to get more people involved in the overall arts scene, a push that will likely include making local music outlets more visible, Rinaldi says.
“I think the survey and report reinforced the idea that we have a disproportionately large number of arts outlets for a city our size, and we’re not only looking at the wealth of what we have, but ways to improve and sustain that. The issues we were looking at during the research were associated with audience and resource development, and that will continue.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Brian McCord
