Grace Lutheran Church’s upcoming benefit concert will feature the premiere of a Seattle-area composer’s piece for a solo cello.

Phil Hirschi composed “Sunny Day on Portage Bay” in 2022, but the piece was never performed.

This month, Hirschi showed the score to Pamela Roberts, principal cellist with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra. She said she was immediately impressed with its composition, especially what she deemed “its refreshing themes and interesting rhythms.”

Roberts had already scheduled a benefit concert to honor Toni Boutilier of Quilcene, for her years of volunteer work across Jefferson County, and saw it as perfect timing for a premiere performance of Hirschi’s “Sunny Day on Portage Bay,” a Rhonda for solo cello.

Roberts will perform the premiere, with Hirschi in attendance.

“Toni Boutilier loves cello music, so this concert will be fun for her,” Roberts said. “She was diagnosed at age 31 with breast cancer, when her children were 5 and 12 years old. The cancer metastasized to her brain, requiring intensive treatments over the last eight years. Of course, medical bills are constant.”

Roberts noted Boutilier’s volunteer work in creating hygiene kits and lunch bags for the homeless, as well as a county-wide shoe drive, which she has been leading for eight years and counting.

“Her generosity is a great example to us all,” Roberts said.

Roberts will be joined by pianist Helen Lauritzen on the Sonata for Cello and Piano in A major, FWV 8 - Allegretto poco mosso by César Franck.

The remainder of the program will feature Sung-Ling Hsu on the piano, playing “Spiegel Im Spiegel” by Arvo Pärt, “The Swan” by Camille Saint-Saens, “Lush Life” by Billy Strayhorn, Arpeggione Sonata by Franz Schubert, “Summertime” by George Gershwin and Guitarre by Moritz Moszkowski.

Hsu, a pianist and violist from Taiwan, immigrated to the United States in 2014, majored in composition at university, and worked in scoring and sound effects design. She lives in Quilcene, is a pianist at Port Ludlow Community Church and a co-artistic director of the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Series.

Lauritzen began piano lessons at age 7, and following choral singing and choral directing, she founded the Seattle Peace Chorus in 1983, which she directed for 14 years. She lives in Port Townsend, where she sings in the RainShadow Chorale and directs the local Threshold Choir.

Roberts graduated from the University of Washington, studying cello performance with teachers Eva Heinitz and Toby Saks, and was a faculty cellist at the University of Puget Sound and a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival. She lives in Quilcene, is the principal cellist in the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra and a co-artistic director of the PTSO Chamber Music Series.

Hirschi played cello with the fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 1970s, and Hirschi’s “Sunny Day on Portage Bay” borrows a passage from the part he played in the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “Lila’s Dance,” by John McLaughlin, on the album “Visions of the Emerald Beyond.” The opening theme and lyrics are borrowed from “The Chant,” by the 1970s Canadian band Lighthouse.

What to know:

The concert is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 31, at Grace Lutheran Church, at 1120 Walker St. in Port Townsend, and is free to attend, with donations accepted at the door to benefit Boutilier, with no tickets or reservations required.

A short reception will follow the concert.