PORT ANGELES — Before Erin Hennessey performed with Ireland’s National Symphony, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the Irish National Opera, she was a teenage violinist at Port Angeles High School.
With the Roughrider orchestra, she traveled to Carnegie Hall in New York City as a high school senior in March 2013.
Hennessey, the guest artist in this weekend’s Port Angeles Symphony Chamber Orchestra concerts, continues to fly far and wide for her beloved art form. She lives in London, where she is a doctoral candidate at the Royal Academy of Music.
“I am looking forward to everything about it,” she said of her trip home.
Hennessey will join the 26-member chamber ensemble for public concerts at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave. in Port Angeles on Friday, and at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave. in Sequim on Saturday.
Tickets are $20 at portangelessymphony.org and at the door on concert night; for more information, call the Port Angeles Symphony at 360-457-5579 or email pasymphony@olypen.com.
These are the symphony’s first concerts of 2025, which marks conductor and artistic director Jonathan Pasternack’s 10th anniversary with the community orchestra.
Collaborating with musicians such as Hennessey means a chance to do one of the things Pasternack loves: mixing well-known classical masterworks with new compositions. Together, he and Hennessey chose to add “Vox Amoris” by Lithuanian composer Pēteris Vasks to the two concerts this weekend, along with Luigi Boccherini’s inventive Symphony in C major and Stravinsky’s “Apollon Musagète” (“Apollo, King of the Muses”) ballet.
“All three composers have brought important innovations to music,” Pasternack said, adding he’s delighted to program the Stravinsky together with “Vox Amoris,” given Hennessey’s passionate championing of such contemporary music.
“It’s always great to bring music that I know is brand new to our audience, as long as it is of the highest quality. I think people will be surprised by the beauty and romanticism of the Stravinsky,” the conductor said.
As for “Vox Amoris,” “it’s about that universal concept, love, and I have been finding it so rewarding to explore,” Hennessey said.
“It allows and encourages the violin to search for really deep moments in stillness, but it also flies off the handle in some places … I think there’s something in it for every listener, no matter what kinds of love you’ve experienced.”
Hennessey, known as an educator and for playing traditional Irish music as well as orchestral works, is studying Irish composer Mary Dickenson-Auner at the Royal Academy.
Dickenson-Auner (1880-1965), a violinist, teacher and composer of operas, oratorios and symphonies, “climbed so many barriers — which I’ll note still exist — as a female violinist in that era and also as a composer,” Hennessey said.
“She had an incredible life, performing and subsequently composing through both world wars. If I were to choose one ‘fun fact,’ it would be that she was the violinist who premiered Bartok’s First Violin Sonata,” Hennessey said.
She’ll have some time away from the Royal Academy this summer. Hennessey has been named artistic director of the Olympic Strings Workshop, a nonprofit music camp at Lake Crescent. She’ll work with teenagers who are on the path she set out on more than a decade ago.
How does Hennessey cope with all of that air travel?
“It’s always hard,” she admitted.
“I do my best to drink a lot of water and use melatonin, headphones and an eye mask to help myself sleep on the flight and, if I’m lucky, try to leave a ‘decompression’ day in my schedule after a long journey. Other than that, just being positive and grateful helps me get through to the other side.”
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
