Excitement bubbles in the voice of Bereniece Jones-Centeno as she looks ahead to a new year in the arts in Astoria.
“I am living in one of the coolest towns in the world,” she said. “This little town has everything, water in front of me, beautiful hills behind me, and I get to help music happen. I feel really lucky.”
Bereniece Jones-Centeno is a part-time executive director of the Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts and is the co-founder of the Cascadia Chamber Opera. She also teaches choir classes in Astoria schools.
Jones-Centeno’s calendar is full. She teaches choir classes for the Astoria School District, serves as part-time executive director of the Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts and is co-founder of the Cascadia Chamber Opera.
The opera had a successful inaugural season last summer. As artistic director, she is planning three weekends of entertainment next summer with Gaetano Donizetti’s 1832 comic opera “The Elixir of Love” and the debut of a children’s opera with young performers from the Astoria Conservatory.
“It’s important to many of us in this town to collaborate, because it is a tiny town and we can share the load as we share audiences,” she said.
The third piece is a modern operatic presentation called “Driving While Black,” which she hopes will spark discussion about race. “Astoria is ready to have this conversation,” she said. “Some will hate this work and some will love it.”
The Larsen Center’s groups and supporters include her opera group and the North Coast Chorale, the North Coast Symphonic Band, the North Oregon Coast Symphony, the North Coast Big Band, Coast Community Radio and the Astoria Lions Club.
Jones-Centeno said the coming year will see energy put into broadening its governing structure while seeking grants to help pay for lighting and sound improvements and renovations of the basement floors and roof.
Vincent Centeno is the musical director of the North Coast Chorale.
Her connections with the North Coast began with a leadership role in the final years of the Astoria Music Festival, which she credits for whetting appetites for culture while revealing the extent of her interest in classical music. “It got people in the mood,” she said.
‘Rainbow’
Jones-Centeno was a featured soloist with the North Coast Chorale’s recent holiday program. Vincent Centeno, her partner and the chorale’s director, has a busy year planned, too.
A mid-May concert, aptly titled “The Macabre,” will feature selections from “Sweeney Todd,” “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Phantom of the Opera.”
They will team with children from the Astoria Conservatory to perform pieces from the musical, “Matilda” and perform with the Cascadia Chamber Opera.
There are plans for a “Messiah” camp, practicing pieces from George Frideric Handel’s oratorio to perform at an annual fundraiser for the Clatsop County regional food bank. All this, plus a winter concert still on the drawing board, piques Centeno’s enthusiasm.
“The North Coast Chorale will continue to offer a rainbow of musical styles for the 2024 season because we love learning and performing music that can appeal to all,” he said. “The more we can reach the hearts of people through music, the better.”
‘Young’
Classical isn’t the only thriving genre. Ray Räihälä, an insurance agent, is the one member of the Brownsmead Flats who isn’t retired.
Ray Räihälä delights in playing with the Brownsmead Flats and the Honky Tonk Cowboys. The coming year includes more music, including plans for a reunion concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band.
The bluegrass band, whose current members are Räihälä, Larry Moore, Dan Sutherland, Ned Heavenrich and John Fenton, is planning a concert for its 40th anniversary.
“We’re thinking of involving folks who have played with us as temporary replacements or just guests, and doing it as a benefit for and at the Charlene Larsen Center,” Räihälä said.
He also plays piano for the Honky Tonk Cowboys, a classic country band, teaming up with its leader, Randy Weese, for solo gigs. “I love singing with him. He’s got a great voice and plays very well, too,” he said.
“In both bands, the members are pretty much all septuagenarians, so it’s kind of like the talking dog — it’s not that we do it so well, it’s just great that we’re able to do it at all,” Räihälä joked. “But, it keeps us young at heart, even if the bodies are getting creaky.”
‘Growth’
The Oregon Coast theater community is back at full pace.
The Astor Street Opry Co. in Astoria is planning its melodramas while the Coaster Theatre Playhouse in Cannon Beach, having completed “Miracle on 34th Street,” is gearing up for “Proof,” a drama about the daughter of a mathematician coping with ethical controversies after his death, which opens Jan. 26.
Danyelle Tinker is the executive director of the Ten Fifteen Theater in Astoria.
The Ten Fifteen Theater’s storefront venue in downtown Astoria will feature “Shooting Star.” The romantic comedy opens Feb. 2 and highlights two former college lovers who reflect on their life paths when reunited at a snowed-in airport.
It is directed by Danyelle Tinker, executive artistic director, who reflects on an “amazing” year, with several shows sold out, the addition of one-night events, and kudos for “An Interview,” which earned second place in an American Association of Community Theater competition.
Beyond a season of plays, stage combat classes taught by “Macbeth” director Sam Dinkowitz and a storytelling workshop are planned.
“I’m very much looking forward to seeing how our theater can expand on these successes and continue to grow into a bigger and better organization,” Tinker said. One highlight has been newcomers auditioning and helping backstage. “We welcomed a number of new faces into our volunteer base, which is really exciting — having fresh talent, ideas and experience is essential to our growth,” she said.
‘Excitement’
Judith Altruda, a metalwork artist whose jewelry is featured at RiverSea Gallery, splits her time between Astoria and Tokeland, Washington, where she champions the successes of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe.
In 2023, she continued to promote work by the late Eugene Landry, a disabled artist whose paintings chronicled the tribe in the 1970s.
That culminated in an exhibit at the Astoria Visual Arts Gallery which showcased Landry’s work alongside creations by four contemporary tribal artists, including her daughter, Sophia Anderson.
Some while ago, Altruda wrote a guide to the first exhibit of Landry paintings and is also writing a book about his life.
One chapter she wrote about Landry’s 1969 portrait of Winona Mail Weber was a focus of “The North Coast Squid,” a literary magazine published by the Hoffman Center for the Arts in Manzanita.
Metalwork artist Judith Altruda is one of several versatile figures in the local arts community. Her jewelry is on display at RiverSea Gallery and she spearheaded an exhibit of tribal art at Astoria Visual Arts this year. Her writing was also published in The North Coast Squid. She is now working on completing a book.
“I am still coming down from the excitement of the Eugene Landry exhibit,” she said. “What a way to close out the year. I’m looking forward to finishing my narrative non-fiction book about Landry’s art and life by early spring.”
‘Amazing’
The success of the Landry exhibit was achieved, in part, by the flexibility of the space at the Astoria Visual Arts gallery and the vigor of its executive director, Annie Eskelin.
She juggles many projects, including working at RiverSea Gallery. Before the Landry exhibit, the gallery hosted its annual members’ show, while collaborating with Ten Fifteen Theater on its October production of “Bartow,” which showcased the life of coastal Native American artist Rick Bartow.
“I am excited about the amazing lineup of exhibits and expanding our education program,” Eskelin said.
As a separate venture, this year she and her husband Bill Atwood opened Made in Astoria, a downtown gallery and multipurpose space. She is eager to grow the gallery’s retail side in the future.