PORT ANGELES — A little tango music, a lot of weed-pulling: Both are part of the Applause! Virtual Auction, a fundraiser for the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra to start online at 7:30 tonight.
The event, live-streamed via Portangelessymphony.org, offers live bidding on 12 live auction items including the “Wacky Weed Warriors” service for a high bidder with a weedy yard. Armed with various tools, a team of Symphony board members will descend and “conquer your weed problem,” according to the auction catalog.
All of the live auction items plus dozens of silent-auction packages can be seen on the symphony website.
Viewers can click on the “register” link on the home page to see the entire catalog and preview the live items; admission is free to browse and to sign up.
For technical assistance, participants can call the symphony at 360-457-5579 or email pasymphony@olypen.com.
Tonight’s event, the culmination of bidding that has carried on all week, also showcases locally and internationally known symphony musicians.
• The Port Angeles Symphony String Quartet — Traci Winters Tyson, Tyrone Beatty, Morgan Bartholick-LeMaire and Jory Noble — will play a tango by American composer Michael T. McLean and an excerpt from Ravel’s string quartet;
• Port Angeles teenager Adam Weller, an award-winning violinist, will play a movement from a Bach partita;
• Virginia-based cellist Julian Schwarz and his wife, pianist Marika Bournaki, will offer Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour” (“Love Letter”).
Hosting the event are Anthony Balducci and Nancy Stephanz, along with professional auctioneer Dennis Caldirola, who has presided over past Applause! evenings. Together they will broadcast from Edna’s Place, formerly Fanaticus, the spacious venue on First Street in Port Angeles.
Other live auction packages: pies for four seasons custom-baked by Dr. Dick Vancalcar of Port Angeles; a half day of pruning by an experienced crew of five; a lodging-dining package at the 7 Cedars Hotel. Pasternack, for his part, offers a set of four one-on-one music lessons.
“The topic totally depends on the interest of the winning bidder. It could be conducting, music reading, a particular composer, music theory,” Pasternack said.
“The sky’s the limit.”
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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.
