PA Symphony to present free online concert

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Port Townsend musician Marina Rosenquist will make a special appearance for the first slated concert performance by the Port Angeles Symphony this fall.

The show will be presented online during the week of Monday, Nov. 9.

The musical program of the event holds special significance for the featured guest.

Rosenquist said she holds a vivid memory of being a teenager at the Oberlin Conservatory music camp in Ohio, where she first heard Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet, a 195-year-old masterpiece.  

“I was enthralled at how beautiful it is,” she said, preparing to perform it with an ensemble of players. “It was so uplifting then. And that carries through to now.” 

The show will be the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra’s first concert in eight months; a performance of the Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms’ “Double Concerto.”

The musicians will offer their event to the world, online and free. The symphony, founded in 1932, is the only local orchestra to go virtual, officials said, as the Port Townsend Symphony has canceled its concerts until next year.

Rosenquist will appear along with fellow string players from Sequim and Port Angeles: violinists Jory Noble, Kate Southard-Dean and James Garlick; violists Tyrone T. Beatty and Phil Morgan-Ellis; and cellists Traci Winters Tyson and Karson Nicpon.

Jonathan Pasternack, the symphony’s music director and conductor, has been leading rehearsals at Port Angeles’ Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, which he said is extremely careful with its safety protocols.

The musicians are the first outside group to use the space since the pandemic began, officials said.

When they walked into the church sanctuary in early October, it was the first time the musicians had gotten together since the night when the full orchestra, with guest artist Josu De Solaun, gave its winter concert in the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center.

Pasternack, for his part, hasn’t had a pause like this at any point since starting his conducting career some 40 years ago.

Rehearsing these past weeks hasn’t been easy, Southard-Dean said.

Masks are something each performer must get used to, and with the ensemble members spaced
6 feet or more from one another, they’ve got to watch more intently than ever — for eye contact, body language, the subtlest musical nuance. 

“All that said, everybody is very inspired by the music and by being together,” Pasternack added. 

“It’s a very emotional time for all of us.” 

Pasternack has tailored the Brahms concerto for this tighter group of string players, which for the final rehearsal and concert video recording will feature two guest soloists: Charlotte and Olivia Marckx, who are known as the Sempre Sisters.

Violinist Charlotte Marckx debuted with the Port Angeles Symphony in December 2018; her older sister Olivia, a cellist, will give her first performance here.

The Seattle-area duo is known for their award-winning “Bach to Beatles” music, which they’ve played in recitals, at the Northwest Folklife Festival and on National Public Radio.

Violist Beatty relishes this chance to play the Brahms alongside the Sempre Sisters.

He’s also looking forward to revisiting Mendelssohn’s Octet, which he performed some 14 years ago with The Young Eight, an ensemble of African-American classical musicians known around the country. 

For Beatty, rehearsing both works now is a new adventure. 

“We’re on heightened alert,” he said. “Since we’re spread out, we really have to listen. It adds to the intensity.” 

A video crew will record the ensemble’s performance Nov. 7, and the one-hour  production will be available to view the following week on YouTube, with links provided on www.Portangelessymphony.org, on the Port Angeles Symphony Facebook page, and via email to those wanting to tune in.

“When you’re engaged with others in music-making, you get immediate inspiration. You miss it. You ache for it,” said violinist Rosenquist. Like her compatriots, she said she believes in giving her all, regardless of audience size or location. 

Meantime, cellist Nicpon, who will be seated across the room from Rosenquist, hopes people watching at home will receive the same solace he does when immersed in Mendelssohn and Brahms. 

A first-year student at the University of Washington, Nicpon is taking all his courses online from his home in Port Angeles; he gave an interview right after his evening chemistry lab.

Set aside time to enjoy the performance without distractions, Nicpon advised.  

“The Brahms is very grand,” he said, adding, “I love it.”