PORT ANGELES — Adam Stern and Mark Wendeborn’s brainstorm just might pack the house Saturday morning.
The event looks like any other Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra concert: some 65 musicians, 10 a.m. dress rehearsal, music that has stood the test of time.
But this time, Stern, the symphony’s conductor, and Wendeborn, the executive director, want a skewed audience for the concert they dreamed up before the start of the symphony season: They want young people, from preteens to teenagers, and anyone who has yet to experience an orchestra.
On Saturday morning only, admission to the symphony concert at the Port Angeles High School auditorium at 304 E. Park Ave. is free for youths younger than 18 and for the families accompanying them.
Casual atmosphere
“This will be a very casual atmosphere,” Wendeborn said.
He doesn’t want anybody worrying about how to dress or when to clap.
What he does hope for: people of widely varying ages discovering something new to them, courtesy of Stern.
“Adam is a font of knowledge about music and composers,” Wendeborn said.
“They’re going to get insights into the music that they won’t ever get from just going to a concert.”
The first half of the two-hour performance will have the conductor offering brief reflections on Ferde Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” with its dramatic five parts.
‘Sunrise’ begins set
It begins with “Sunrise,” then opens up to “The Painted Desert,” takes off “On the Trail” and climaxes in “Cloudburst,” a musical storm replete with lightning, thunder, pelting rain — and then the moon emerging from behind the clouds.
Stern said he hopes to show his audience to a place where they see the Grand Canyon before them — and are then able to translate that new kind of vision to other musical experiences.
Introducing people to such a piece, he added, can open up whole new appetites.
For the conductor, “the most fun, and the greatest challenge, is to come up with something that will delight people — and then send them away thinking about how much they learned.”
And though this is billed as a concert for young people, Stern believes anyone of any age can profit from a glimpse inside the classical composer’s creative process.
And when asked what he might say to a teenager considering the concert, he replied: “If you think the only music that rocks, the only music that’s wild and brash and enveloping, is rock ’n’ roll . . . come and be surprised.”
And Stern, who himself has two kids — Ella, 16, and Oscar, 14, who have found they enjoy composers like Bartok and Holst — added that he employs a special technique when discussing this stuff.
“I’m not averse to using humor in a presentation,” he quipped.
After the first half, which will also dip into Aaron Copland’s “An Outdoor Overture,” comes an intermission, and the second half will be more like the usual dress rehearsals, with Stern and the orchestra putting the finishing touches on the program they will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Saturday evening
The theme of the concerts is “Made in the U.S.A.,” since the Copland and Grofe pieces are joined by William Schuman’s “New England Triptych” and Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer 1915.”
Soprano Natalie Lerch of Seattle is the guest soloist singing the latter, which was inspired by a story by James Agee.
As with each concert, Stern will offer preperformance remarks at 6:40 p.m.
Tickets to the evening performance range from $10 to $25 and are on sale at Port Book & News, 104 E. First St., Port Angeles; BeeDazzled at The Buzz, 128 N. Sequim Ave., Sequim; and at the Port Angeles Symphony box office, reached at 360-457-5579.
Sequim-area residents interested in taking the symphony’s charter bus into Port Angeles are encouraged to phone 360-683-4743 for departure times.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.