SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!

May
27
Sat
Yawa: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
May 27 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

 

Yawa, also known as Amenta Abioto, is a songwriter and producer from Memphis,TN and currently based in Portland, OR. In her one-woman performance, she builds vocal and instrumental loops from synth, drum machine, and kalimba creating atmospheric textures. Yawa surprises and tantalizes audiences with mind bending ideas while skipping vocally from soul-shaking gospel to smooth jazz. Her music is boldly mystical and soul-fired, and her raw live performances invoke elements of both theatrical and magical surprise. “

Jun
3
Sat
Jeremy Ferrara: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jun 3 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

 

Jeremy Ferrara: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

There is an innate tenderness about Jeremy Ferrara. His good nature is inescapable, and anyone within earshot of his quavering voice and quiet guitar is likely to swoon in sympathetic reaction. He’s a folksinger, and a song-diviner. His music is as fun as it is finely detailed. His new album Everything I Hold is exemplary of this style. Produced by Mike Coykendall, the LP features just Jeremy, his guitar, and voice, on eight songs that fill the listener with wonder, empathy, and joy.

Jun
10
Sat
Divorce Care: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jun 10 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Divorce Care: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Seattle independent rock band Divorce Care’s catchy guitar hooks and emotionally wrought lyrics are expertly hand-crafted for fans of pre-myspace-era emo. Bringing effortlessly nostalgic arrangements with a post-modern twinkle in her eye, singer/songwriter Bri Bloemendaal’s quietly powerful delivery simultaneously demands your attention while making you feel at home. Themes of love and loss are immediately apparent when you listen to Divorce Care’s debut album “Ladylike” (Produced by Andy Park), but scratch any deeper than the surface and you’ll observe Bloemendaal artfully wrestling with complexities of morality, feminism, and self-awareness. Underpinned by Seattle music scene veterans Matt Batey, Sean Lane and CJ Stout, Divorce Care’s powerhouse performance belie their new-kids-on-the-scene status, already making waves in the notoriously restless pool of PNW talent. 

Jun
17
Sat
Ida Jane: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jun 17 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Ida Jane has an eclectic style. Her music is Influenced largely by folk, alternative rock, and indie musicians such as: Fruition, Lucinda Williams, Mazzy Star, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Niel Young, Kacy & Clayton. Ida provides a mix of pensive, thoughtful songs as well as more upbeat, friendly, folk rock.

Jun
24
Sat
Music: Kelli Schaefer (solo) + Crowey @ The Sou'wester
Jun 24 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Kelli Schaefer: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

A few years disappeared into the forest of a global pandemic, but Kelli Schaefer and her brand new band trod through a new record this year, and it is expected to leap from the woods in 2023. With two full-length records and two EP’s already under her belt, her new record is another pivot in stylistic choice. This time, with a fresh take on the age-old singer-songwriter trope, Schaefer delivers haunting melodies over swirling woodwinds, piano, classical guitar, and upright bass. These songs could be the soundtrack to a modern gothic, a playlist for a trudge through the forest, the accompaniment to a subconscious mantra. As expected, Schaefer again demonstrates her refusal to confine herself to a single genre. Along with her bandmates Andrew Jones (bass), Ayal Alvez (piano, keys), Joey Binhammer (guitar), Schaefer is working to finish the record and planning tour steadily in the foreseeable future. The record was recorded live at Color Therapy with Ryan Oxford (Y La Bamba) and mixed by Alex Bush (Damien Jurado).

Crowey: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

What began as the solo project of Joey Binhammer (Die Geister Beschwören, Elektrokraken, Meeping, Whales Wailing), Crowey has grown into a psychedelic/folk soundscape project and collaboration between Joey and Kate Kilbourne (Mordecai, June Rose Band, Sweeping
Exits). Both multi-instrumentalists from Portland, OR, the duo crafts sweeping vistas of finger-style guitar, strings and vocal harmonies, exploring the deep well of human emotion and finding beauty in its darkest crevices. Layers of intricate orchestration evoke the sound of moving clouds. 

Jul
1
Sat
Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jul 1 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Brad Parsons is a singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from Astoria, OR. His career collaborators include John Craigie, Bart Budwig, Horse Feathers, Cabinet, Fruition, TK & The Holy Know Nothings. In 2017, he released his debut album “Hold True,” followed by an EP, “The Starbird Sessions,” in 2020. Parsons has toured nationally and been a mainstay at festivals such as Northwest String Summit and Sawtooth Valley Gathering. 

Jul
8
Sat
!Mindparade: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jul 8 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
 
!mindparade dissolves traditional boundaries between pop, experimentalism, and composition, producing a kaleidoscopic output while retaining a strong sense of song craft. Based in Portland, Oregon, songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Alex Arnold collaborates with friends to flesh out the project’s recordings and live iterations, resulting in albums and shows that balance orchestrated rock, synthpop, experimental noise, and ambient group improvisation. The project has been self-producing records since forming in Bloomington, Indiana in 2011. !mindparade founded their own label, Neon Underground Archives, as a platform to release their experimental albums ‘Hypertonic’ (2020) and ‘Skyscapia’ (2023). For this performance at Sou’wester, the group will perform stripped down versions of their material in an intimate setting.
Jul
15
Sat
Music: monica and Lou Trove @ The Sou'wester
Jul 15 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

monica: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

‘monica’ is songwriter Caitlyn Faircloth’s melancholy dream of electric guitars and dusty amplifiers. This project lingers in sleepy, asymmetrical indie rock using soft, lonely melodies to create a nostalgic soundscape for listeners. Caitlyn lives in Quilcene, WA on the Olympic Peninsula.

Lou Trove is the nom de plume for Adam Torres’ new experimental electronic music project, which prominently features the sounds and textures of digital mellotron flute to narrative incisive compositions inspired by precious geologic formations from the Earth’s core. Aesthetically and thematically sparkly, Lou Trove makes music for meditation, hearing as seeing, and as a portal to depart upon adventures of the imagination.

Jul
27
Thu
Exhibition: Barn Rave, 2011 @ The Sou'wester Lodge Art Gallery Trailer
Jul 27 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Barn Rave, 2011” by Tori Wheeler

ON VIEW
JULY 27 2023 – OCTOBER 12 2023

Tufted, and interactive artwork, Barn Rave, 2011 encapsulates the frenetic, feral exchange of energy found in a packed dance floor. The modular work recalls a night in a remote barn outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Its tessellated pieces intertwine, forming a hazy, abstracted scene of kids drenched in sweat, a barn filled with fog, hay, pulsating music, and a mix of suspicious substances. This ephemeral experience imprints neural pathways.

The puzzle-like components and imagery pay homage to a transformative and hedonistic celebration of youthful exuberance. The liberated sensuality and sometimes-brainlessness of infectious bassy beats become the unyielding desires to relinquish the burdens and constraints of adolescence in small town surroundings. The pieces move and connect, at times surpassing a perfect fit. Capturing the raw energy of dancing amidst others. Capturing unbridled energy. Their arrangement allows for infinite reconfigurations—a reflection of the ever-shifting nature of the dance floor.

Tori Wheeler is an artist, designer, and dancer whose work is influenced by ecstatic human exchange, touch and tactility, music-and-nature-induced-trance-states, and a dash of trickster humor. Their creative practice mirrors that of a desire path.

Tori holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from the Kansas City Art Institute and works as a textile artist, gold leaf gilder, and fairweather graphic designer.

Curated by Nikki Cormaci

Jul
29
Sat
Blair Borax: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jul 29 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

 

Blair Borax: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Blair Borax is a singer-songwriter who writes tender folk-pop songs to make you feel less alone. 

With vocal stylings reminiscent of 1920s jazz, songwriting that is unafraid to tackle the taboo, and pop melodies that stay with you for days, Blair Borax has something special to offer. She conjures a vocal charm somewhere in between Regina Spektor and First Aid Kit, wordsmithing inspired by folk songwriting greats like John Prine, and moody vulnerability like Haley Heynderickx and Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker.

After releasing her first EP ‘everything is light work’ in May of 2021, Blair released her debut album “Keep Walking” in June 2022.  “Keep Walking” will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, through the stages of anger, grief, and joy beyond trauma and heartache. It is the perfect companion to help you keep walking too.  She is working on her sophomore record, “Tender Lately” this year.