PORT TOWNSEND — The Olympic Music Festival will present Ray Chen and Julio Elizalde in recital to close out the season Saturday and Sunday with “Art of the Violin II.”
The concert will be at 2 p.m. at the Wheeler Theater at Fort Worden.
Both shows are sold out but overflow seating will be available at the gate both days.
The seats are moveable red chairs with no armrests located in the back row.
They will be sold for $33 each.
Violinist Chen, winner of the Yehudi Menuhin (2008) and Queen Elizabeth (2009) competitions, will join Elizalde, pianist and Olympic Music Festival (OMF) artistic director, for a season finale that continues the theme from the OMF Opening Celebration — repertoire for violin and piano.
The program is the same both days and ranges from the heroic lyricism of Grieg’s rarely heard “Violin Sonata No. 2” to Bach’s iconic “Chaconne in D minor for solo violin.”
Chen has performed with orchestras and in concert halls throughout the world.
His presence on social media makes him a pioneer in an artist’s interaction with his audience.
According to a press release, his commitment to music education is paramount, inspiring the younger generation of music students with a series of self-produced videos combining comedy and music.
His appearances regularly sell out and draw an entirely new demographic to the concert hall.
Elizalde, a former student of veteran festival musician Paul Hersh, first appeared at the OMF in 2008, and returned every subsequent season.
In 2010, Elizalde was named an associate artistic director, having been responsible for inviting new rising talents to perform at the summer concerts in the barn.
The following year, his title was changed to co-artistic director, and in the fall of 2014, Alan Iglitzin named Elizalde as his successor as the second artistic director in the history of the festival.
Elizalde is a founding member of the New Trio, winner of both the Fischoff and Coleman National Chamber Music Competitions and is the recipient of the Harvard Musical Association’s Arthur W. Foote Prize.
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Elizalde is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School, where he earned a doctor of musical arts degree in 2011.
At Juilliard, he was a student of Jerome Lowenthal, Joseph Kalichstein and Robert McDonald.
