Port Angeles symphony unveils a new season

Published 1:30 am Friday, June 26, 2026

PORT ANGELES — Music and musicians native to the North Olympic Peninsula, soloists from around the world and a North American premiere fill out the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra’s new season — for which specially priced passes are now on sale.

“I am so looking forward to all of our programs for this, our 94th season,” said conductor and artistic director Jonathan Pasternack, who is starting his 12th year with the community orchestra. “We start off with our Family Concert in September, featuring all American composers.”

Pasternack has spent the past year booking soloists and creating the concert programs for the season, which will bring live orchestral and chamber music to Port Angeles, Sequim and Seattle.

Season-ticket packages are available at https://portangelessymphony.org, or music lovers can call the symphony office at 360-457-5579 to have a season brochure sent to them. Those who purchase season passes pay as much as 35 percent less than they would for single tickets later in the year, Pasternack said.

The symphony seeks to make this music accessible to all, he added. Those 18 and younger can attend concerts free with a ticketed patron, while seniors and students enjoy discounted tickets. Public dress rehearsals on the morning of each concert also are priced at a discount.

The Sept. 26 Family Concert, an annual event celebrating music from the stage and the movies along with light classics, brings the full orchestra together with the combined Sequim and Port Angeles high school choirs. The varied program will feature Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from “On the Town” and the modern hymn “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

“Our soloist will be the amazing trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden, who will be playing the West Coast premiere of a new concerto written for her, as well as a beautiful ballad by Gershwin,” Pasternack said.

That would be “Someone to Watch Over Me,” originally written for Broadway.

Alongside, Sequim-based composer and arranger Linda Dowdell, who has plenty of experience with Broadway, is orchestrating a piece especially for the Family Concert. She’s arranged a blend of “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific,” and “Children Will Listen” from Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”

Having the combined choirs and the 70-piece orchestra perform this piece will be a complete thrill, Dowdell said.

Dowdell, who has worked with musicians and dancers in New York City and on international tours, has collaborated with Pasternack for more than a decade now. She said that since she did her first arrangement for Port Angeles Symphony in 2017, she’s watched the orchestra flourish as it takes on challenging music.

This time, “I have a better idea of what they can do well, which is everything,” Dowdell said.

Across the season, Pasternack seeks to offer a mix of beloved, well-known music and new pieces. Then he adds soloists from across the country — and from Clallam County.

“Two of our guest soloists this season made childhood debuts with the Port Angeles Symphony some years ago, and now they are returning as adults for the first time,” Pasternack said. “They are pianist Charlie Albright and violinist Simone Porter, who both enjoy prominent international soloist careers.”

“Two other native Port Angeleans are making their symphony debuts this coming season: violinist Christopher Taber, who now lives in Victoria, B.C., and soprano Kirsten Sienna Porter, who played violin in our orchestra during high school and has for the past eight years been pursuing studies and performing in Europe,” the conductor added. “Vocalist Amanda Bacon and cellist Julian Schwarz will also be gracing our stage.”

For the season finale, the chamber orchestra will present a piece that is close to Pasternack’s heart.

“A new Requiem, for chamber orchestra and chorus by Swedish composer Joachim Olsson, will have its North American premiere in our May 21 and (May) 22 concerts in Port Angeles and Sequim,” he said.

“For this premiere, the symphony will partner with the Northwest Edvard Grieg Society, and we will present a matinee performance in Seattle the day after our Sequim concert,” said Pasternack, who added this new music deserves to be performed and known widely.

The Requiem “is a beautiful work, a modern masterpiece,” he said.

Sseason schedule

Sept. 26: The Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra, the combined Port Angeles and Sequim high school choirs and soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden will present music of Gershwin, Bernstein and others, plus the West Coast premiere of Jeff Scott’s “Athena” concerto.

Oct. 9-10: “Night Music of the Streets of Madrid” from Boccherini, plus “Autumn” and “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” and music by Bach with the Port Angeles Symphony Chamber Orchestra and violinists Christopher Taber and Jory Noble.

Nov. 7: Guest soloist Charlie Albright will join the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra for a concert featuring Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Stravinsky’s Petrushka (the 1947 version).

Dec. 12: The Holiday Concert, with vocalist and narrator Amanda Bacon, holiday classics and the traditional audience sing-along.

Jan. 15-16: The Chamber Orchestra and piano soloist Sung-Ling Hsu will play Stravinsky’s Octet for Winds, a capriccio from Janáček and a Dvořák Serenade.

Feb. 20: The full symphony orchestra will present “A Pastoral Symphony” from Vaughan Williams and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, with guest soprano Kirsten Sienna Porter.

March 27: Guest violin soloist Simone Porter will join the symphony for a concert of Beethoven, Sibelius and Higdon’s “Blue Cathedral.”

May 1: The season’s last symphony orchestra concert will bring cello soloist Julian Schwarz, Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony.

May 21-22: The chamber orchestra will present the U.S. premiere of Olsson’s Requiem “ad memoriam” with soprano Laura Loge and the Combined Chamber Chorus in partnership with the Northwest Edvard Grieg Society.

The symphony’s six full-orchestra concerts will be at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave. Chamber orchestra performances in October, January and May will be at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Port Angeles on Fridays and at Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim on Saturday evenings.

More information and updates during the season are available on the Port Angeles Symphony website.

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.