PORT ANGELES — The performers plan to take their audience on a journey: to a lost ark and through a “Phantom Tollbooth,” to Mars and Jupiter, then back to a farm in the Midwest. There also will be a romantic stop at the Paris Opera House.
Live music has the power to transport us to these places, said Jonathan Pasternack, conductor and artistic director of the Port Angeles Symphony. The full orchestra, plus featured vocalists, a narrator and a big, youthful choir will embark on “Family Pops,” the annual concert for all ages this Saturday at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave.
Two performances are set: the public dress rehearsal at 10 a.m. and the concert at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 for the morning event and $20 to $25 for the evening show, while those 18 and younger will be admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult. Outlets include portangelessymphony.org, Port Book and News in downtown Port Angeles and the symphony office, which can be reached at 360-457-5579.
For Pasternack, Saturday marks a milestone. When he raises his baton to conduct the 70 musicians on stage, he will begin his 10th season with the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra.
“I am just as excited to be starting my 10th season here as I was my first,” said Pasternack, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native who has conducted ensembles around the globe.
His home orchestra is filled with the energy of musicians from across and beyond the North Olympic Peninsula. Outstanding players trained in the Port Angeles School District’s strings program perform alongside veteran musicians, Pasternack said.
Then there are the guest soloists who come from across the United States and Europe.
Saturday’s “Family Pops” also will feature local radio announcer Todd Ortloff in a new role. He will narrate “A Colorful Symphony” from “The Phantom Tollbooth,” a tale about a portal into a fantastical place. The piece, created by Mexican-American composer Robert X. Rodriguez, was inspired by Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth,” a classic novel for young readers.
“A Colorful Symphony,” besides being an adventure story, showcases the instruments in the orchestra, Pasternack said. The audience gets to hear how natural phenomena — such as the sunrise — sound when conducted and played by a large ensemble.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” Ortloff said. “Of course it’s all accentuated by great musical flourishes that help paint the pictures of the story for our ears.”
Also on the Pops program: “The Promise of Living,” from Aaron Copland’s opera “The Tender Land.” The combined Port Angeles High School choirs, some 60 strong directed by John Lorentzen, will step onto risers in front of the stage to sing this inspirational piece about a young woman coming of age on her family’s farm.
Two more singers will perform another song, the deeply romantic “All I Ask of You” from “The Phantom of the Opera,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical set at — and beneath — the Paris Opera. Morgan Bartholick-LeMaire and Sunshine Peterson will be the soloists; besides being accomplished singers, both are violinists in the Port Angeles Symphony.
“Family Pops” also will carry forward its tradition, Pasternack said, of celebrating music from the classical world and from movies and Americana. Saturday’s concert will start off with John Williams’ “Raiders of the Lost Ark” March; then will come Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture.”
After “Phantom of the Opera” and the “Phantom Tollbooth” will come the “Mission: Impossible!” theme and two of Gustav Holst’s “Planets.” The orchestra will take listeners to “Mars” and “Jupiter,” pieces known for their grand, exciting sound and lush melodies.
Following these works and Copland’s “Promise of Living,” the finale is twofold: “America the Beautiful,” featuring the choirs, and Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Ortloff, for his part, called the concert “a fantastic showcase of some really fun songs. You’ll recognize them, and I think it will be a great chance to kick back and enjoy some music that’s easy on your ears and will warm your soul too.”
“Family Pops” is the first of 12 concerts in the Port Angeles Symphony’s 2024-2025 season. Each performance, now through May, will feature at least one guest soloist. They include Port Townsend violinist-violist Matthew Daline in recital with pianist Jennifer Chung on Oct. 11 and 12, German violin virtuosa Franziska Pietsch with the full orchestra on Nov. 2, and Venezuelan-born cellist Gregorio Nieto on Dec. 14.
On Jan. 17 and 18, the guest soloist will be Erin Hennessey, the Port Angeles-bred violinist who now plays with Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. Principal cellist Traci Tyson will play Bruch and Popper on Feb. 15, violinist Charlotte Marckx will play Brahms on March 22, Bulgarian-born pianist Anna Petrova will return to play Beethoven’s Emperor concerto May 3, and bassoonist Jacqueline Wilson will join the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra May 16 and 17.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
Morgan Bartholick-LeMaire will sing a duet of “All I Ask of You” from “The Phantom of the Opera” during Saturday’s “Family Pops” concert with the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra. (Morgan Bartholick-LeMaire)
