SPRING TERM PREVIEW: ARTS ACROSS MHCC

Welcome to the Spring Term! These next nine weeks, Mt. Hood Community College is presenting countless exciting and interesting performing and visual arts events, including several concerts, art exhibitions, and its latest spring theatre production.

With so many events, it can be easy to lose track of them all. So, to ensure you do not miss anything, this is your guide and preview to MHCC’s arts scene.

As per a MHCC tradition spanning two decades, the Visual Arts Gallery is capping off the school year with two annual exhibitions: the (Regional) High School Exhibition and the MHCC Visual Arts Student Exhibition. The former has already begun and will be featured at the Gallery through April 28. The exhibition showcases the artwork of students from numerous East County high schools.

The next exhibition, running May 8 through June 2, will feature art created by MHCC’s very own visual arts students, utilizing a wide range of mediums from paintings to ceramics. The Visual Arts Gallery, with free admission to all, is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

On the side of MHCC’s performing arts, the annual, highly popular Mt. Hood Jazz Festival will be held May 5-7 at various locations across the campus. The Jazz Festival is a long-standing tradition at MHCC, having been launched in 1982. This year’s festival will feature headliner performances from the Ignacio Berroa Trio, Bill Charlap Trio, Wycliffe Gordon, and more.

If the Jazz Festival is not enough jazz for you, MHCC will host the Oregon Music Education Association State Jazz Championship in the College Theatre on May 19-20. Nearly 30 different high school jazz bands will be competing in the championship.

Finally in June, MHCC will host its own Spring Term musical ensemble performances, scheduled from June 4 through June 7, including jazz, orchestral, choral, and wind concerts, most of which will be free to attend. (Off campus, Spinella’s restaurant in Gresham will host a free Mt. Hood Jazz combos performance on June 12.)

Not to be overlooked is MHCC’s Theatre Spring Production, to be staged on various dates between May 12 and May 21. The theatre student production will be “Buried Child,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama written by Sam Shepard, set in the 1970s.

For more information about all performances and their respective entrance and ticket fees, please visit https://www.mhcc.edu/PerformingArtsEvents/.