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“I just love making music happen anywhere,” says Maeve Stier. “I love receiving energy from people. There’s sort of like a wonderful cycle when you’re performing.”
Stier, deemed “Portland’s Favorite Busker” at the 2025 Buskathon competition, works as an accordion player, opera singer, Broadway musical performer and mime—to name only a few of their trades.
Picking up their dust-ridden accordion during the pandemic, Stier, 25, found themself practicing in Laurelhurst Park—far away from their roommate, who had booted them because of the noise. When people started dropping cash into their accordion case, Stier realized they could take their musical talent to the parks and joined the local busking scene.
Stier took their accordion to New York City, making their Broadway debut as a member of Cabaret’s Prologue Company, welcoming theatergoers to the Kit Kat Club at the August Wilson Theatre. Now back in Portland, Stier was recently part of Renegade Opera’s Bird Songs of Opera, in which they played a birder in the immersive project, leading viewers through the Leach Botanical Garden.
“That was sort of a final evolution of my beginnings as an accordion player of arranging opera arias for myself to sing along to,” Stier says.
During Bird Songs of Opera, two young boys followed the rehearsing vocalists around, joining in on the music. This was one of Stier’s favorite recent moments. Despite having a deep background rooted in music theory and opera performance, they love music precisely because of its ability to touch anyone regardless of prior experience so they can be “brought into the fold of it,” Stier says.
Catch Stier and their accordion at 6:30 pm Friday, Aug. 15, at Domaine Serene Wine Lounge (1038 SW Alder St., 503-850-7001, domaineserenewinelounge.com) or at 6 pm Thursday, Aug. 21, at Bar Botellón (606 NE Davis St., 503-235-5996, barbotellon.com).
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2025 here!
