Salish Sea music festival to highlight Renaissance Psalms

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 17, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — The Salish Sea Early Music Festival will present Renaissance Psalms, Irish Baroque and Folk at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1020 Jefferson St., Port Townsend.

A $20 to $30 free-will offering is requested. Youths 18 and younger will be admitted free.

The concert will feature guitarist and lutenist Oleg Timofeyev and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan, the festival’s artistic director.

The program will be in three parts covering Renaissance psalms from the 1620s in Holland, Irish and Scottish folk music of the 1740s and operatic and traditional variations from 1820s France.

Part I will include musical variations by lutenist Nicolas Vallet and flutist Jakob van Eyck.

Part II will include James Oswald’s “Airs for the Seasons,” popular Scottish melodies collected by Italian composer Francesco Barsanti and some popular songs written specifically for the English guitar by Scotsman Robert Bremner.

Part III will feature variations popular from opera songs and folk traditions by guitarist Ferdinando Carulli and flutist Jean-Louis Tulou.

For Part III, Timofeyev will use a seven-string guitar made in Russia and an Cohan will use eight-keyed flute made in London. Both instruments were made in 1820.

Future concerts in the festival include:

• April 26, Telemann Paris Quartets II, featuring David Greenberg, Susie Napper, Elisabeth Wright and Cohan.

• May 10, Handel and Bach, featuring Hans-Jurgen Schnoor, Maike Albrecht and Napper.

• June 7, Johann Sebastian Bach, featuring Irene Roldán and Cohan.

• June 28, The French Connection, featuring Annalisa Poppano, Billy Simms and Cohan.

For more information, visit www.salishseafestival.org.