PORT ANGELES — Classically trained and well-traveled pianist Anna Nichols will offer “a respite in the middle of people’s day,” this and every Wednesday in July.
She’s calling her free lunch-time recitals “A Little Noon Music,” and promised they will be relaxed affairs, so music lovers are invited to bring their lunches to the venue: First Presbyterian Church, 139 W. Eighth St.
This Wednesday, the series will start off with “a quiet interlude with a bit of fun stuff thrown in,” Nichols said.
She’ll play a Beethoven sonata, two intermezzi by Brahms, Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” a concert arrangement of “How Great Thou Art,” plus some spirituals and gospel music.
“And then there will be a little bit of ragtime-type [music], with cool arrangements,” promised the pianist.
All of this will fit inside an hour, she said.
A Pacific Northwest native, Nichols has studied with piano and organ teachers in this country and in France and Spain, and performed in a variety of settings around the world, including on a bamboo organ in Manila, the Philippines.
She started playing piano at age 5, and by high school became accompanist for the 100-voice Anchorage, Alaska, Community Chorus.
She went on to serve as organist and choir director at St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Mo., and at St. Mark’s Church of England in Versailles, France.
For her quartet of noon concerts in Port Angeles, Nichols will alternate each week between piano and organ music.
“Someone suggested this [series] to me, and a light bulb went on; I thought it would be fun,” she said.
On July 13, the second “A Little Noon Music” offering will feature “more traditional organ literature, and again some fun stuff mixed in,” Nichols said, adding she’ll play Handel’s Prelude and Fugue as well as some spirituals.
On July 20, Nichols will return to the piano, and the final lunchtime recital on July 27 will have her back on the organ.
For more information, phone Nichols’ business, the Waterfront Art Gallery, at 360-452-8165.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@
peninsuladailynews.com.
