After a non-existent 2020 season, due to COVID-19, Britt Music and Arts Festival has worked hard to provide programs for 2021. Recently your Mayor, City Administrator and staff, City Planner, and City Fire Chief, along with Britt President and CEO, Donna Briggs, met for a pre-season conference […]
Hanley Farm welcomes Nick Garrett-Powell’s return at the summer’s first “Cars Under the Stars Drive-In Concert,”on July 1, 6:30-8:30pm (gates open at 5:45pm). A celebrated local acoustic guitarist and soloist, Nick’s music ranges from classics to contemporary. Tickets are $55/per car and includes two glasses of wine and unlimited […]
Did you know that Jacksonville was the first West Coast group of buildings added to the National Historic Register? In 1967 it was one of eight initial towns designated as a National Historic Landmark City by the U.S. National Park Service. Over 100 historic structures were identified as comprising Jacksonville’s National […]
Something’s in the air. Something soothing, as opposed to the scary silence that’s surrounded us for far too long.
Voices can be heard on the street, unmuffled by masks. We hear hellos. Hellos from friends we haven’t seen in a while. Hellos from friends we’re meeting for the first time.
We may […]
By the time this issue of the Jacksonville Review hits the stands, the state of Oregon will have reached the 70% vaccine benchmark. This is great news for our state’s economy and cultural wellbeing. It’s time to celebrate!
This year, our philosophy has been to focus on ways the BFO […]
June 25, 2021 – The Britt Festival Orchestra (BFO), under the leadership of the festival’s Music Director, Teddy Abrams, is announcing three unique musical experiences for its 2021 season.
It begins with a virtual installation art piece titled Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK that will be accessible through a smartphone app from July 1 through October 15. Then, […]
The Britt Festival Orchestra (BFO) will present the world premiere of an experiential new work by the multi-faceted, Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and composer, Caroline Shaw. Under the leadership of the festival’s Music Director, Teddy Abrams, the BFO will perform this special project on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trail system in six free performances from July 30 […]
MEDFORD, OR — Britt Music & Arts Festival is excited to announce its first set of concerts for the 2021 Britt Presents season. In the first of two announcements, Britt invites music lovers to “Come Together” and enjoy a wide variety of musical […]
MEDFORD, OR — ATTENTION: Do not purchase your Britt Music & Arts Festival tickets anywhere except at brittfest.org. Britt is seeing more ticket scams than ever this year. Don’t get scammed.
Only go to: https://brittfest.org/performances
Many ticket resellers such as StubHub, Seat Geeks, and Tickets-Center offer Britt tickets at inflated prices. Purchase your […]
Almost any time of day you will see people hanging out on the deck or waiting in the drive through lane at Pony Espresso Café. Located on N. Fifth Street, the Pony is a mainstay of Jacksonville. Founded in 1995 and bought by Chris and Kadie Boivin in 1998, Pony […]
As real estate inventory has declined and buyer demand increased, multiple offers have become common—we are in a seller’s market. This means there are more buyers than homes available for sale. As a buyer, it can be harder to get your offer accepted, even if you write a […]
According to the National Association of Realtors, the average homeowner stays in their home for about 10 years before selling. Do you think this sounds short? Or maybe too long? Well, there are lots of reason homeowners sell, but here are the top 10 reasons:
Dogecoin (pronounced dowzh·koyn) traded at $.0054 on January 1st. By May, the price has reached over $.70- or over 12,000% higher! “Crypto-currency” has become the cocktail party (remember those!) conversation of the day. But, caveat emptor, this month’s article is a brief history of financial bubbles.
Bubbles have typically been […]
Recently, fully vaccinated, my husband and I flew to our southern states and then drove home to Oregon from Jacksonville, Florida. We took care of some family obligations and visited old, familiar haunts and some new places along the way. I found myself comparing every place we […]
Our March Pioneer Profile focused on “Hired Girls,” described by Helen Colvig Cook as an institution of the “by-gone era” when she was growing up in Jacksonville’s Colvig household in the late 1800s. In a letter written in 1959 she noted that hired girls “could not possibly be put in the […]
This summer, SOHS Hanley Farm is a place to gather in the evenings to enjoy new and novel events. The fun begins June 3 with the first “Summer Thursday” picnic, where friends and families can share a meal with their loved ones on the grounds while enjoying the peace […]
Sixty-three years ago, a vocal group called Danny and the Juniors wailed the lyrics, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here To Stay” into a vinyl creed. Preachers and teachers and parents alike pooh-poohed the beat and the lyrics, but to the kids they were pure gospel.
Then Elvis was drafted, Jerry Lee […]
Authenticity is one of my deepest values. I strive to live authentically and I encourage and support my clients to do the same. For me, living authentically means being your true self: not some idea of who you are, or who other people think you are or “should” be. It means […]
If you are currently in the real estate market, you already know it’s a seller’s market with little inventory and a lot of competition for homes. Therefore, when I came across this blog post on the National Association of Realtor (NAR) website by research economist Scholastica Cororaton about […]
When I started in real estate in 2004, my office was on the corner of 5th and California streets. One day I stepped outside to take a call and noticed something I had never seen before. Over the white picket fence was a house nestled amongst the trees and […]
This month, I would like to provide a short recap of my first three months serving as Mayor. I thought I was as prepared as possible to serve as Mayor, after six plus years on the HARC, three years on Budget Committee and 2 years as a […]
As you can imagine, everywhere Britt’s staff and Board leadership go, our friends and neighbors want to know what our plans are for 2021. The most urgent question is always the same: “Are we going to have a season?” We wish the answer was a simple “yes” or “no.” […]
Think about this idea. Every time you pick up a cup of coffee from Pony Espresso or you buy a gift from Farmhouse Treasures or order a book you are dying to read from Rebel Heart Books, you are shopping small and making a difference. We all want to make […]
The recent Super Bowl halftime show (well, last February) featured music by “The Weeknd.” We’d seen The Weeknd perform on several late night TV shows, so we knew his shtick. We say “his,” because The Weeknd is one guy. In our memory, one person occupying center stage used to be […]
This past, week, I received two newsletters. The first, from writer Maria Popova, shared an excerpt from author Katherine May’s book Wintering, about the quiet, difficult seasons of life and how to allow them. The second, from Eileen at Rebel Heart Books, described the loss of her husband’s parents to COVID-19 […]
If you are in the process of buying a house, you will see there are a variety of factors that make up a home’s level of affordability; it’s not just the purchase price, but also interest rate, taxes, maintenance costs and any other expenses associated with purchasing and […]
In the last few years, we have seen housing demand explode in Southern Oregon and far exceed the available supply. It only seems to be getting worse. Currently, there is less than a month’s supply of homes for sale and less than a 1% vacancy rate for rental homes. […]
This month, I want to address something that several citizens have commented on—which may be an uncomfortable subject for some. I tried several approaches to this subject, but this subject is hard to write about for some reason. I tried scientific, humorous, dead-pan and folksy… none seemed […]
I recently came across a March 1862 letter that Cornelius Beekman wrote to his parents in New York. After talking about how tough the winter had been locally, he wrote, “I must have a girl some way and can not get one in this Country to suit me…. I would like […]
Hanley Farm’s 2021 signature spring event, the Annual Heritage Plant Sale, will be held LIVE at Hanley Farm! Admission is free. The sale will be setup much in the manner as the 2020 Wreath-Making event—tables will be safely distanced from one another, COVID-19 protocols will be observed and you […]
It’s been a while since I have shared the story of how Britt began. In case you’re not familiar with the history of the Peter Britt Gardens Music & Arts Festival, it all started with a dream in the summer of 1962.
Two friends—Sam McKinney and John Trudeau—had a dream […]
The financial response to this ongoing (and hopefully soon subsiding) pandemic has been enormous. And while that has helped to stabilize at-risk households and to boost many stock indexes to record highs, it has also led to increasing concerns about prospects for inflation. Total Covid-related Federal expenditures are approaching […]
Are you familiar with GameStop? If so, you probably know it as a place to buy and sell video games. But, for a brief moment, it was the center of the investing universe. (NYSE:GME) GameStop, like many retail stores, struggled in 2020 and had, understandably, seen its share price […]
The following is from the ‘Soul Matters’ archives, back when we went places and saw people.
I was out with a friend the other evening enjoying a real Manhattan in a real bar. In the course of conversation my friend said, in a rather Eeyorish way (i.e. witty, humorous and severely cynical), […]
Oregon has a long history of land use planning to protect farm and forest lands. Oregon’s economic dependence on agricultural and timber production combined with concerns over loss of these valuable resource lands and the potential for conflicts with incompatible uses led the Legislature to protect agricultural lands […]
This April 24 & 25 is Hanley Farm’s signature spring event—the Annual Heritage Plant Sale. The last group plant sale was in 2019. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we needed to consider another, safer approach to the 2020 plant sale. In 2020, the Hanley Farm Event Planning Committee […]
Jacksonville is “celebrating the Shamrock” this month so Historic Jacksonville, Inc. is going Irish by highlighting one of our early settlers, Patrick J. Ryan.
In the 1840s, over half of the immigrants coming to America were Irish. Patrick J. Ryan, a 13-year-old native of County Tipperary, Ireland, was one of them. He […]
The pandemic has been an agent of change; years of change have happened in just a few months. We have seen the change in behaviors and habits that have affected many industries short term and long term. Travel, eating out and live events have all but disappeared. E-commerce grew […]
A long time ago in a memory far, far away, when the word “pandemic” likely triggered blank stares, your diligent Unfettered duo wrote an annual column related to the year’s Academy Award nominations. This year, as we write this, the nominations have yet to be announced, while the awards ceremony, […]
We have been lucky to have fire protection in Jacksonville for many decades. Organized in 1883, Jacksonville’s original volunteer fire department, Engine Company #1, responded to the call of the Jacksonville Fire Hall bell well into the 1950s. Eventually, it was re-organized into a professional department with […]
When our state shut down in late March of last year, all in-person Residency classroom visits, BrittKids Koncerts, and Britt Festival Orchestra Fellowships were cancelled. To try to replace these live programs, we created several video series: BrittVids, BrittKids Koncert Video Series, Britt Bridge Series, and Scout’s Sing-a-long Songs. […]
Margaret Lyon was born in Wray, Colorado on October 5, 1937 and left this world in Jacksonville, Oregon on December 27, 2020. After attending school for twelve years in Wray, Margaret headed off to the University of Colorado in Boulder where she majored in English and French. She would laugh remembering […]
When I was giving birth to my daughter, there came a point—about twelve hours into my unmedicated odyssey—where I was done. I looked at my midwife, bleary and exhausted, and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I think a whole lot of us are feeling something akin to that level […]
Sunny was the last pup left in the litter. Hearts were set on a yellow lab puppy and for some inexplicable reason, these pups were in short supply. Sunny (Mary named her) was an atypical Labrador Retriever with a pointy snout and head more like a greyhound than a […]
Perhaps no state in our country is cited as often as Oregon in urban planning literature for its progressive transportation and land use policies and purported success in containing urban sprawl. One of the most significant parts of this effort is formation of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) around […]
We have all been through quite a stretch since last winter. Life as we knew it is different and not by choice. Some days it seems we have given up much that we will never regain. We miss our freedom of travel; dining out; the movies; […]
When home prices increase in an area, the highest percentage increases happen for the lowest-priced homes. The greatest demand in any market is for the most affordable homes. For example, 711 Nobility in Southwest Medford sold for $223,000 in December 2015 and then sold again five years later in […]
Many of Jacksonville’s early merchants were Jewish, fleeing wars and persecution in their homelands by immigrating to the United States. Most of the town’s Jewish merchants moved on to Medford, San Francisco, New York, and other cosmopolitan centers when the railroad bypassed Jacksonville in the 1880s in favor of the flat […]
One evening in 1972, a folk singer ran over a skunk. When he got home, he spent fifteen minutes jotting down a tune about the accident, calling it, Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road. The singer’s name was Loudon Wainwright III.
The early ‘70s was a musically transitional time. […]
Performing arts venues are still shuttered with no earned income and fixed overhead. Over the fall of last year, ninety percent of venues reported they could be forced to close forever without meaningful federal relief; hundreds have already permanently shuttered, never to return.
Since April 2020, Britt Music and Arts […]