PORT ANGELES — There’s nothing quite like it, said conductor Jonathan Pasternack: a live orchestra, filling the air with music from around the world and across time.
Pasternack, artistic director of the Port Angeles Symphony, knows from experience. This Saturday, he’ll be surrounded by a 73-member orchestra in the 1,144-seat Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center for the annual holiday concert, part of Pasternack’s 10th anniversary season with the symphony.
“The program is guaranteed to put people in a festive mood,” the conductor said.
Internationally celebrated cellist Gregorio Nieto has come from New York City to join the symphony as featured soloist in the 7:30 p.m. concert, with a 10 a.m. dress rehearsal open to the public that morning.
The opportunity, the Venezuelan-born Nieto said in an email interview, “generates an indescribable excitement.”
Pasternack feels the same.
In the performing arts center, 304 E. Park Ave., the symphony will begin with Christmas Canticles, written for the Boston Pops by Sean O’Loughlin; the brilliant Polonaise from “Christmas Eve” by Rimsky-Korsakov, and a “Sleigh Ride” dance from Mozart. Then will come Humperdinck’s Prayer and Dream Pantomime from “Hansel and Gretel.”
“It’s really sumptuous and beautiful,” Pasternack said of the piece, first performed 131 Christmases ago.
Tickets to Saturday’s performances are available at portangeles symphony.org, at Port Book and News in downtown Port Angeles, and, if any are left, at the door. For the morning dress rehearsal, tickets are $10, while those 18 and younger will be admitted free with a ticketed patron. Tickets range from $15 to $40 for the evening concert.
After “Hansel and Gretel,” Nieto will step to the front of the stage for Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, which happens to be a favorite of symphony violist Anne Burns.
Principal violist with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra for two decades and a registered nurse, Burns moved to Poulsbo a few years ago, played with three other orchestras, and then joined the Port Angeles Symphony. Pasternack and her fellow musicians are the most important reasons she chooses to drive from Kitsap County, Burns said.
“This orchestra is fun, full of nice people, hardworking and dedicated to making great music,” she said.
After intermission will come Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Die Fledermaus” overture — “I just love to play this one,” Burns said; “it is bubbly and exciting, and a little bit Viennese,” along with being a traditional number played at New Year’s concerts throughout Europe.
The Fantasia on Greensleeves by Ralph Vaughan Williams will follow, featuring longtime symphony flutists Sharon Snel of Port Angeles and Judy Johnson of Port Ludlow. Then Nieto will return to play Glazunov’s Chanson du menéstrel (minstrel’s song), just before the carol sing-along, when the orchestra will accompany the audience in songs including “Joy to the World,” “Deck the Halls” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
The finale: the Radetzky March from Johann Strauss Sr., a traditional Viennese wish for a happy new year.
Nieto will make his first trip to Washington state for this concert. Captivated by the cello since he was a 9-year-old only child in Venezuela, he was later invited to join the National Children’s Orchestra.
“We spent so much time practicing and traveling together that we developed a brotherly bond among all of us. Since then, music has become a kind of compass that has led me to live in different places and meet people from all over,” said Nieto, who lived in Paris, Moscow and Mexico before moving to the United States this year.
Pasternack first learned about Nieto through their mutual colleague, Fernando Arias, who produced the cellist’s recording debut, Esencia: Latin American Masterpieces for Cello and Piano, released earlier this year on the Aria Classics label.
“Music is my passion, and every day I am grateful to have the job of my dreams,” Nieto said.
“When I step on stage, I see myself as an instrument itself, for the emotions that music brings to life. It’s difficult to put into words, but my goal is for the music to take center stage, allowing the audience to lose track of time.”
As a universal language, this music allows us to communicate with one another, Nieto added.
“The language of music is the language of emotions … it connects us, regardless.”
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
