PORT ANGELES — It’s possible, regardless of your previous experience with a baton, to do a fleeting stint as conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony.
And if travel is your desire, you might slip away to the Oregon coast for a week, or light out for New Orleans.
Such experiences will go up for bid in the nonprofit Port Angeles Symphony’s most important fundraiser: the Applause! Auction at 6 p.m. Saturday.
This year the theme is “Carnivale,” in light of the Mardi gras celebrations going on around the world during early March, so festive costumes and masks are welcome.
Big fundraiser
The event, which generates some 21 percent of the symphony’s concert and program budget, also includes a multi-course dinner at the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St.
Tickets are $75 including appetizers, Camaraderie Cellars wines, dinner, dessert and coffee. Dinner choices include crab-encrusted Alaskan cod, grilled rib eye steak, cheddar-chive chicken breast and for vegetarians a stuffed Portobello mushroom dish.
Reservations should be made by Thursday by phoning the symphony office at 360-457-5579.
Unique items
Some highlights from the auction catalog:
• A week in New Orleans, with lodging at the Quarter House suites, dinners at Antoine’s Restaurant, the Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s Restaurant; a jazz cruise aboard the steamboat Natchez and tickets to see the Louisiana Philharmonic;
• The “pick your paradise” package to include bidder’s choice of a week-long trip to Bali, Indonesia, or Cortona, Italy;
• A seven-day Holland America cruise for two to Alaska, Mexico, the Caribbean or Canada and New England;
• A getaway to Victoria, B.C., with MV Coho tickets, lodging at the Chateau Victoria or Royal Scot Hotel and tickets to the Pacific Opera Victoria at the Royal Theatre;
• A weeklong stay in July in a cottage in Seaside, Ore.;
• A scenic flight over the North Olympic Peninsula with pilot and Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict;
• A guest appearance as conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra during its September Pops & Picnic concert program.
Revenue from the Applause! Auction supports the Symphony’s September-through-May season of concerts in Port Angeles and Sequim.
It’s the proceeds from this event, along with support from local music lovers, that keeps concert ticket prices affordable, music director and conductor Jonathan Pasternack noted.
Tickets are as low as $15, while youngsters 16 and under attend free when accompanied by a paying adult.
More information about the 86-year-old symphony orchestra is found at http://portangelessymphony.org/, on the Symphony’s Facebook page and by emailing PASymphony@olypen.com.
