Event

Portland Folk Festival presents Celso Machado with special guest Geoff Berner

Virtuoso Brazilian guitarist, percussionist, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Celso Machado transports his audiences through the richness and diversity of Brazilian music and beyond. We're thrilled to bring him back to Portland for a second rare performance at Portland's historic Old Church.

"Celso alone is a force of nature ... Up close, Celso Machado is probably the most musical person I know. He performs, composes, publishes, records, teaches, and makes music out of literally everything he touches. In his magical hands bottles of water, rocks he finds on the beach, his own body and, of course, almost any musical instrument I could name - plus some I couldn't - sing beautiful songs. For me, Celso Machado is the truest of musical Renaissance men and the ultimate one-man band."
-Malcolm Gould, producer of Jogo da Vida and the program OnStage at Glenn Gould Theatre, CBC Records

* * *

"I want to drag klezmer music kicking and
screaming back into the bars."

That's the goal of Vancouver singer-songwriter-accordion player Geoff Berner.

"I want to make original klezmer music that's drunk, dirty, political and passionate. As a Jew of eastern european descent, I feel I have a calling to make this music live, not just preserve it under glass like something in a museum."

"The Avenging Angel of klezmer" -Canada's Globe and Mail
"Geoff Berner might be klezmer's saviour" -NOW Magazine
"Cherish him, cherish him, for there really is no one
like him. Fantastic." -Billy Bragg