PORT ANGELES — Music heals. Violist Tyrone Beatty learned this the hard way.
Beatty is about to appear as the featured soloist in the first Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra concerts of the 2018-19 season.
He and the 22-piece ensemble will play a concerto selected for its significance in his life; then they will offer Joseph Haydn’s unusual Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor.
“Tyrone is not only one of our strongest musicians, but also someone who takes such joy in his music-making that the audience can’t help but feel it,” said Jonathan Pasternack, music director and conductor.
He’ll lead the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra in concert tonight at Port Angeles’ Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave., and Saturday at Sequim’s Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave.
Both performances begin at 7 p.m. with $15 tickets available at the door.
As with the rest of the Port Angeles Symphony concerts this season, music lovers 16 and younger who come with an adult are admitted free.
Advance tickets are on sale at Port Book and News, 104 E. First St., Port Angeles, the Joyful Noise Music Center, 112 W. Washington St., Sequim, and at the Port Angeles Symphony office at 360-457-5579.
Information also awaits at portangelessymphony.org.
Back in 2003, Beatty was an American student living in Limerick, Ireland, studying on scholarship at the Irish World Music Academy.
Just 23, he was in a bicycle accident and suffered a head injury that paralyzed his right side and stole his power of speech.
After a long hospital stay, the even longer recovery process began.
He took a break from his master’s program.
His mother, Michelle Tidwell, encouraged him to go back and finish.
“It was a hard decision,” he recalled. But Beatty made it.
He returned to school and, still coping with the injury’s aftermath, he chose a piece to carry him forward: Henri Casadesus’ Concerto for Viola, a Romantic work in the style of J.C. Bach.
Today Beatty has his master’s degree in music.
After college he moved back to the United States, performed around the country with The Young Eight, an African American string octet, and became a teacher, guiding violists and violinists all over the age spectrum.
While living in Jacksonville, Fla., he began working at Bank of America.
In 2012, he moved to Port Angeles, where many now know him as the bow-tied banker at 1st Security.
He’s also been a member of the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra ever since.
The Casadesus concerto is still a challenging piece, Beatty said. For him, this music is proof that there is life after trauma. For these reasons, he chose it as the work he’ll perform as featured soloist with the orchestra tonight and Saturday.
Then there’s that 45th Symphony, which Pasternack chose to follow on the concerto’s heels. It’s no saunter in the park.
In this piece, Pasternack said, Haydn creates a rare experience. The key of F-sharp minor gives it a sound like nothing his 18th-century peers were doing.
Instead of speeding toward a flashy climax in the last movement, the orchestra takes a pause.
“Then, there’s a completely different atmosphere,” said the conductor, “as the music turns to a slower, lyrical section. One by one, the musicians take their leave of the stage as their parts end.”
Concertmaster Heather Ray and violinist Kate Dean are the last to remain.
Which is how Haydn’s 45th came to be known as the “Farewell” Symphony.
“I love the variety of this particular program,” Pasternack said of the pair of concerts. To start out these evenings of drama and lyricism, he’s added American composer John Corigliano’s “Voyage,” inspired by the Baudelaire poem “L’Invitation au Voyage.”
“I chose it because it’s an interesting opener; very atmospheric and colorful,” he said.
Pasternack looks forward to introducing Corigliano, also known for composing the score for the 1999 movie “The Red Violin,” to local audiences.
For Beatty, each evening is loaded with emotion expressed in music.
“If you want to go home filled up,” he said, “this is definitely the concert to come to.”
