Meet the dynamos who make Portland's art music snap and crackle

Powell should know. Between his work in marketing and development with the top-shelf Portland Baroque Orchestra and as singer and executive director of internationally touring chamber choir Cappella Romana — long the only Northwest-based classical ensemble to present a standing concert series in both Portland and Seattle — Powell has an extraordinary grasp of what is needed to further art music in the Northwest. "I think the scene for art music in Portland will grow," he says. "I'd also hope that we wouldn't always talk in binary propositions, of mainstream/fringe, pop/classical, and so on." He also recognizes that "the large institutions are very, very important. Were they ever to go away, the small- and mid-size organizations would not simply receive a windfall. I've seen this firsthand in Seattle when one larger orchestra folded, and the smaller orchestras didn't simply gain all those orphaned listeners as new audiences."

Four Portland musicians/administrators Powell admires: Elaine Calder (president, Oregon Symphony), Tuesday Rupp (founder, In Mulieribus and active professional freelance singer), Erik Jones (marketing director, Oregon Ballet Theatre), Ron Blessinger (artistic director, Third Angle New Music).

Early in his career, Ken Selden got some good advice from Joseph Polisi, long-serving president of New York City's famed Juilliard School: Shun the big-city spotlight and find instead "the place where you can make the most impact with those working with you." Hello, Portland. In 2006 Selden arrived from New York City, where he was an assistant conductor with Eos Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, to take a job as Portland State University's new director of orchestral activities.

"I came to an orchestra program that completely needed to be started from scratch," he recalls. "I tried to set it up so that the goal wasn't a perfectly polished performance; the goal instead was to expand the repertoire." And expand it he has. The student orchestra now plays important modern composers like Peter Lieberson, Kaijo Saariaho, and Magnus Lindberg alongside the major warhorse works, and has picked up two consecutive ASCAP Adventurous Programming awards.

Between leading rehearsals, teaching private students, and cover conducting for the Oregon Symphony, Selden is active as the public face of PSU's music department, and busy recruiting new students to his program that don't just have an interest in becoming virtuoso players, but in setting other people afire about classical music.

"PSU's an amazing place," he says, noting the "world-class faculty right in the middle of Portland." He wants to further uncork the campus for all musical comers, whatever their interest or ability. And, once his two young children have grown a bit, he'd like to play a more active role in the Portland scene as a whole, as conductor, coach and educator.

Four Portland musicians Selden admires: Carlos Kalmar (conductor, Oregon Symphony), Hamilton Cheifetz (cello faculty, Portland State University), Carol Sindell (violin faculty, Portland State University), and all those folks in the Portland Youth Philharmonic.