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On Tuesday, November 3rd, four of us will sit down at noon in The Old Church and play Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 until it is finished, somewhere around six o’clock. Admission is free. We are suggesting a donation of $25, and all of it goes to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve woken up at 3am to watch Morning Joe, I’d be a millionaire. Not to mention that I watch recordings of Deadline: White House and the Lawrence O’Donnell show pretty much every day. 

Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 was written in 1983. Nobody heard it played complete, in public, until 1999. Here’s what happened in between.

Morton Feldman spent most of his working life inside his family’s coat business in Manhattan’s Garment District, composing on the side, largely self-taught, until he was 47. He didn’t take a teaching post until 1973, when the University at Buffalo made him the Edgard Varèse Professor of Music, a job he held until his death in 1987.

On Tuesday, November 3, House of Scordatura will perform Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2 at The Old Church Concert Hall, noon to 6pm. Six hours, no intermission. Come and go as you like. All proceeds go to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC).

Every live sound you will hear at Gamera vs. Zigra — the underwater thrashing, the xylophone turtle shell, the footsteps and punches and alien shark vocalizations — comes from someone on stage hitting, scraping, or squeezing an everyday object at exactly the right moment. That someone is David Ian and his three-person Foley crew.

Lisa Lipton has been part of the Gamera story since the beginning. As a clarinetist and co-producer with Filmusik—the live cinema ensemble that originated this format at the Hollywood Theatre—she was in the room when Gamera vs. Zigra first came to life onstage in Portland. Today she serves as Executive Director of 45th Parallel Universe, one of the city’s most adventurous chamber music organizations, and as a host on All Classical Portland.

I grew up watching Godzilla movies in Hermiston, Oregon, on weekend afternoons and school nights I probably should not have been up for. I thought Mothra was a badass. I thought Rodan was a badass. I remember the sound Godzilla made, that long descending electronic shriek, and the feeling that something genuinely dangerous was happening on the other side of the screen.

Ten years ago, Justin Ralls and his collaborators at Filmusik did something Portland hadn't seen before: they scored a 1971 kaiju film live, in a theater, in front of an audience. This June, House of Scordatura is bringing that score back to the Hollywood Theatre for three performances of Gamera vs. Zigra — and we asked Ralls ten questions about what it was like to return to the project, what's changed, and what it means to write music for a giant turtle.

If you were with us for Turkish Rambo, you already know what we’re about. If you weren’t — this is a good place to start. We find the weird, wonderful stuff. We put it on a stage with live music, live voices, and live sound effects, and we let it rip. That’s House of Scordatura. And our next one is a big deal to us.

Last spring, Portland showed up in force for Turkish Rambo—a delirious mashup of cult cinema, live foley, and a new score by composer Justin Ralls that transformed a forgotten VHS oddity into a sold-out spectacle. How do you follow a project that unhinged? Easy: with a giant, fire-breathing turtle.

Wherein Ron shares the heart behind House of Scordatura — and a vision for bringing Oregon stories to life, one stage at a time.