Classical Up Close Pop Up Concert: Kim Mai Nguyen & Avery Waite, viola & cello duos

• Kim Mai Nguyen, viola
• Avery Waite, cello

Classical Up Close is a chamber music festival created and produced by members of the Oregon Symphony and friends. Our mission is to bring high quality, live classical music to as many people as possible. To that end, we travel to neighborhoods all around the Portland metro area, holding concerts outside of the usual downtown concert hall, and every performance is free.​

2022 marks our ninth season of this endeavor, and we are thrilled to be back after these two difficult years. Audiences can expect an informal tone where they are free to do things not normally done at a classical concert, like taking photos, tweeting (#upclosepdx), texting, clapping between movements, sitting onstage with the musicians, and asking them questions (during the Question and Answer time).

This concert will take place indoors.

About Classical Up Close

Classical Up Close is a chamber music festival created and produced by members of the Oregon Symphony and friends. Our mission is to bring high quality, live classical music to as many people as possible. To that end, we travel to neighborhoods all around the Portland metro area, holding concerts outside of the usual downtown concert hall, and every performance is free.​

About Kim Mai Nguyen, viola

Originally from France, Kim Mai Nguyen is a Juilliard-trained violist, music educator, and arts advocate based in Portland, Oregon. With a driven personality and a passion for music, she is a dynamic and charismatic performer in music ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, as well as world music. As an artist involved in world citizenship, she has performed as a soloist and taught in Afghanistan, Belize, France, Guatemala, Iraq, Jamaica, Prague, Vietnam, and the United States. Hailed by the New York Times, Kim Mai “gave colorful, committed readings that illuminated the variety of styles offered” at the MoMa Summergarden Series in New York City with the New Juilliard Ensemble.

Kim Mai plays with the Oregon Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival. She is an active musician both in Europe and in the United States. She was appointed principal of the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, SC, and has participated in numerous music festivals such as the Castleton Festival, New York String Seminar, and Tanglewood Music Center. She has experience working with distinguished conductors including Christoph von Dohnanyi, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Williams, and Jaap van Zweden.

Dedicated to education, community activism and cultural diplomacy, Kim Mai has participated in numerous projects around the world. Most recently, she co-directed orchestra workshops in Lebanon and Iraq with American Voice, a state department sponsored organization providing cultural exchange through meaningful arts initiatives. Following a successful workshop with the National Youth Orchestra of Belize, she joined the staff of MusAid Organization, a non-profit that provides musical institutions in under-resourced parts of the world with volunteer music teachers and donated instruments and materials. In 2013, She was a string faculty member with the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica, an El Sistema inspired program serving students in the slums of Kingston.

About Avery Waite, cello

Juilliard-trained Cellist Avery Waite is an active performer, teacher, composer, and arts advocate. Excited by the transformative impact of music education and cultural exchange, he is involved in a wide range of education programs, social justice initiatives, and cultural diplomacy projects. Avery has lived and taught overseas at music programs in the Middle East, Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean and is very involved with the El Sistema movement both abroad and in the USA. He is Executive Director of MusAid, a non-profit specializing in global music education and has led teaching trips to El Salvador, Belize, and Jamaica. In addition to his work with MusAid, Avery has worked in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkmenistan with the State Department program American Voices.

As a performer, Avery has appeared in concert at Avery Fisher Hall, The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, MoMA, and Carnegie Hall, and has performed solo in Europe, Asia, and North America. Avery has been a featured performer on Sesame Street and was also recently selected to perform in concert with Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program. Avery is also an active composer and arranger. Inspired and moved by his most recent experience teaching in Afghanistan, he has done extensive arranging of traditional Afghan folk music. Selections from these arrangements were recently performed at the Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston (SC) and at The Juilliard School. Avery completed his undergraduate studies at Oberlin Conservatory in 2010 and received a Masters degree from The Juilliard School in 2012.