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Eric Stern
Eric Stern is the Northwest’s own premiere operatic tenor, accordionist, pianist, composer and consummate showman, an unparalleled devo with incendiary stage presence and devilish virtuosity. Trained in Europe he has performed there and in the U.S. and Canada garnering critical acclaim for his musicianship and his stunningly imaginative songwriting.
In Portland Oregon he leads Vagabond Opera, a Balkan Arabic Klezmer-based, original absurdist cabaret ensemble. Eric Stern composes, arranges, fronts, and is the lyricist for the band. He is also the co-founder, accordionist, and singer of Hazz Hazz Hulu an Arabic and Turkish ensemble. Eric Stern has appeared on NPR and in New York City, Paris, Seattle, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Philadelphia, Portland, and Santa Fe.
Most recently Eric Stern has played throughout the Northwest at the Oregon Country Fair, Tractor Tavern, The Willamette Valley Folk Festival,The Fez, Sam Bond’s Garage, McMenamin’s Summer Concert Series, Dante’s, Rose Garden Amphitheater, MusicFest Northwest and opening for Al Franken at the Oregon Democratic Fundraiser. He appears on the Decemberist’s latest album and performs as a solo act or with the Eric Stern Trio.
In the Press:
The cleverest of cabarets, he of the huge, swooping tenor; he of the long face and lightning wit. Stern is an artist seemingly comfor-table in any habitat, be it singing onstage in a gilded opera house, roving around a party working his accor-dion or wedged in at upright piano with no more than six inches separating him from the closest diner.
Singer-accordionist Eric Stern, a man whose imagination is as big and colorful as his cabaret-primed voice.
With lungs all mighty, the multilingual Eric Stern squeezes the metaphorically apt accordion, in the Eastern European flavor.
