Live Music/Performances

We bring the community together by hosting a wide variety of live music events that celebrate our heritage and expose us to new perspectives. You can view a list of past performers below. From Celtic and bluegrass to jazz, blues, world music, and rock & roll, the Pendleton Center for the Arts is a great spot to experience the power of live music. You can keep up with all our Facebook events HERE.

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Next Up:

Fiddler’s Showcase

Saturday, August 15, 2026
7:00 p.m., Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets $15

Jacie Penner Sites and Julie LiaBraaten Miller, both National Fiddle Champions, will be joined on stage with Ivy Kerns Waite, and Eric Jepsen to present a high energy exploration of the fiddle in bluegrass, classical, jazz, and other musical genres.  All were members of the Eastern Oregon University Fiddle Ensemble, a performance group started in 1999.

Made possible through the generous support of Harrison Family Medicine.

The EOCenes

Thursday, September 17, 2026
7:00 p.m., Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets $15

It wouldn’t be Round-Up without the soul-satisfying flow that comes with playing bluegrass together for more than 60 years (!).

Many members of the current group, including Duane Boyer, Hal Spence, and Andy Gilbert, met in the mid 1960s, during freshmen orientation week at Eastern Oregon College. They were part of the EO College Ambassadors, a musical touring group that performed high school assemblies all over the Northwest. Each man went on to have great success over the past five decades on the national bluegrass scene, performing with a wide range of groups and ensembles.

Boyer now lives in Haines, Oregon and plays banjo and guitar, and sings lead, tenor and baritone. He taught banjo and guitar at EOC and played a major role in bringing national Bluegrass acts to that part of the state. Hal Spence of Dallas, Oregon played guitar and sang tenor for 27 years with The Sawtooth Mountain Boys, one of the nation’s best-known bluegrass bands, whose travels included three tours of Europe. Doug Jenkins first played with the other members at festivals and fiddle contest in the late 1960s. He went on to win many titles with his fiddle, earning the nickname “Lightning.” Andy Gilbert has performed regularly ever since the EO College Ambassador days, including as part of a banjo-guitar duo in the Willamette Valley. Alan Feves, while not part of the original group, has joined the musicians on stage for more than 20 years and is a master of both the stand up bass and the dobro.

The performance is made possible through the generous support of the family of Nyla Macomber, and the event is being presented in her memory.

Joe Newberry & April Verch

Wednesday, October 21, 2026
7:00 p.m., Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets $15

Photo Credit Brude deBoer

Growing up, Joe Newberry and April Verch absorbed traditions of home and hearth – in his Missouri Ozarks and her Ottawa Valley of Canada. Although they are on the road much of the year, the two musicians are fond of saying that they are rarely homesick, because their music means they always have a bit of home with them wherever they go.

Joe Newberry comes from a family of singers and dancers. He took up the guitar and banjo as a boy and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. April Verch grew up listening to her Dad’s country band play for dances in the Ottawa Valley. She started step dancing at age three and fiddling at age six.  In a Newberry & Verch show, delighted audiences see first-hand the roots of their music, their love of performing, and their strong musical connection. Original songs join timeless classics. Stories warm the heart, and give audiences a chance to understand where the music comes from. Lively fiddle and banjo numbers combine with traditional dance steps to illustrate happy times when people made their own fun.

Made possible through the generous support of Thompson RV.

Select Past Events

Filippo Gorini

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Thanks to a partnership with Portland Piano International, world-class pianist Filippo Gorini performed a recital at the Pendleton Center for the Arts on Saturday, March 14^th for a sold out audience.

Filippo Gorini graduated with honors from the Donizetti Conservatory in Bergamo and the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. He received the “Premio Abbiati”, the most prestigious musical recognition in Italy, in 2022, as well as the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2020 and First Prize at the Telekom-Beethoven Competition 2015. His three albums featuring Beethoven and Bach late works, released on Alpha Classics, have garnered critical acclaim, including a Diapason d’Or Award and 5-star reviews on The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, Le Monde.

Gorini’s “Sonata for 7 Cities”, set to end in 2027, aims to show a new, responsible and ethical approach to concert life with monthly residencies in Vienna, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Portland, Medellín, Milan and more, centered around performances, outreach, teaching, and philanthropy. The Pendleton performance is an outreach project of the Portland residency. During this project he will also perform seven newly commissioned piano pieces by composers Stefano Gervasoni, Federico Gardella, Beat Furrer, Michelle Agnes Magalhaes, Yukiko Watanabe, Oscar Jockel, Ondrej Adamek.

Filippo Gorini’s musicianship has drawn acclaim in recitals in the major venues in Europe and abroad, ranging from Milan’s Teatro alla Scala to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, and Louis Vuitton Foundation Paris, as well as with orchestras such as the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchester, the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, the Gyeonggi Philharmonic in Seoul, the Opera Nacional de Chile.

True Blues with Corey Harris & Cedric Watson
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024
SOLD OUT! 

Hosted by Corey Harris, a powerful singer, accomplished guitarist and MacArthur Grant recipient, True Blues chronicles the extraordinary living culture of the blues in an evening of music and conversation. Harris will be joined on stage by four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist & songwriter Cedric Watson, considered to be one of the brightest young talents to emerge in Cajun, Creole and Zydeco (Louisiana French) music over the last decade.

Seffarine

The musicians of Seffarine, soulful Moroccan singer Lamiae Naki and flamenco guitarist Nat Hulskamp, supported by master musicians of diverse cultures, embrace and extend this rich legacy. Their exciting performances masterfully combine explosive flamenco footwork, exotic instrumentation and grooving basslines. These diverse backgrounds meld, creating what SoundRoots describes as “an ear-caressing blend of sounds from Spain and North Africa, spiced with a bit of fiery instrumentation and percussion.”

“Seffarine’s music can melt the coldest hearts”
-Chicago Reader

Past Performers