‘Man Who Saved Christmas’ arrives on symphony’s stage

PORT TOWNSEND — One wonders: Of all of the musical instruments, why did 5-year-old Vincent Oneppo choose the clarinet?

It wasn’t really a choice, said Oneppo, who now lives in Port Townsend. When he became a musician some 72 years ago, he was an Italian kid growing up in Providence, R.I. — where you had to play an instrument, preferably accordion or clarinet.

His clarinet lessons, it turned out, began a musical career playing in orchestras, dance bands, big bands and other ensembles, filling venues with the sounds of Glenn Miller, klezmer, polkas, what have you.

Oneppo went on to play the saxophone too, thanks to his father bringing home the instrument one day for his 12-year-old son to learn. Oneppo still plays that same tenor sax in the Port Townsend Saxophone Quartet.

On Saturday, one of Oneppo’s own compositions, which he arranged for symphony orchestra, will premiere. The 75-member Port Angeles Symphony will present its annual Holiday Concert, featuring Oneppo’s Overture to “The Man Who Saved Christmas.”

The orchestra will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave., following a short pre-concert talk by conductor and artistic director Jonathan Pasternack at 6:30 p.m.

The public also is invited to the symphony’s final dress rehearsal at the same venue at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Tickets to the evening concert and the morning rehearsal are available at portangelessymphony.org, and remaining seats will be sold at the door.

Oneppo’s Overture, which comes early in the concert, is a short piece that tells a whole story in music. Its working-class hero is A.C. Gilbert, a toymaker who finds himself thrust into a different job entirely.

The onset of World War I brings a decree that toymakers must now dedicate themselves to making equipment for the military. Oneppo’s overture reflects that with big and patriotic notes.

Yet Christmas is coming. Gilbert makes a plea for a return to toymaking, and as the overture unfolds, sound effects of a choo-choo train, a wind-up toy and other playthings come spilling out.

The engineers, the serious men working in the factory, rediscover what inspired them to go into their professions in the first place: learning how to make those old-fashioned toys.

It is, after all, a time to pause and feel that frisson of joy a child feels at this time of year.

Arranging “The Man Who Saved Christmas” for the orchestra — with its perky start, its ragtime passage and a sassy kick line toward the end — was a challenge, Oneppo said — one he enjoyed immensely.

After joining the Port Angeles Symphony as a clarinetist in December 2023, Oneppo has moved on to the role of composer and arranger for this year’s Holiday Concert. Now he’s eager to hear the stage full of strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion players bring “The Man Who Saved Christmas” alive.

“There’s nothing like people you know playing your music,” he said.

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.