PORT TOWNSEND — Two women will dive headlong into the music they love Thursday night in hopes of lifting hearts and raising support for local people in need.
This is the monthly Candlelight Concert, starring cellist Pamela Roberts and pianist Sheila Harwood, an hour of classics livestreamed at 7 p.m. Thursday from Trinity United Methodist Church via trinityumcpt.org and simulcast on KPTZ-FM 91.9.
Admission is free, while donations will be shared with the Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP), the venerable provider of help with housing and other necessities for Jefferson and Clallam county residents. For information, see OlyCAP.org.
The duo picked out pieces that are “easily accessible and very melodic,” said Roberts, who has played cello — in orchestras around the nation — since she was a young teenager.
“We’re going to start with a traditional Baroque piece that’s really upbeat and welcoming,” she said.
The evening also will visit Maurice Ravel, Gabriel Fauré, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Francois Couperin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Schumann and Aaron Copland, several of these just for short trips. The performance will be a summery one, Roberts promised, with light music that feels good on the ear.
“We’re going to end the program with a Debussy sonata, one of the finest pieces ever written,” Roberts added.
“It’s an absolute masterpiece for cello and piano, full of brilliant colors and weird gestures. It’s just magical.”
Harwood, whose home is on Marrowstone Island, and Roberts, who lives in Quilcene, met about three years ago after the cellist’s long hiatus from playing due to injuries in a car wreck. The women found they were kindred spirits.
“Sheila and I come from the same era at the University of Washington. We were both there during a remarkable time when the faculty was full of immigrant musicians who’d fled Nazi Germany,” Roberts said. That was the mid-1970s, when she was the recipient of two coveted Brechemin Family Foundation scholarships.
Roberts has since become principal cellist with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra while Harwood is music director at Port Townsend’s Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
“I work with a super team of musicians; we coordinate each Sunday service,” she said, adding that the church, not open to in-person attendance, continues to livestream its services. Harwood and crew select the music and the performers — a job she loves.
“Playing with Pam is always very fulfilling,” she added.
When pianist and cellist first started practicing together, both were “very timid. Eventually, we were getting our chops back. And [Roberts] is just a very deep and real-McCoy artist.”
Thursday evening’s concert is for the listener who wants “some really, really satisfying playing,” Harwood said.
“We will enjoy every minute,” Roberts said, adding she hopes people will consider making a donation to OlyCAP, an organization she wholeheartedly supports.
Harwood, for her part, looks forward to performing on Trinity United’s Petrov piano, an instrument she said is “very sweet.”
“We wring all the juice out of everything we play,” she quipped.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladaily news.com.
