PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra will perform at 2 p.m. Sunday.
The public also is invited to the orchestra’s dress rehearsal at 7 p.m. Friday.
The free concert and rehearsal will be in the auditorium at Chimacum High School, 91 West Valley Road.
Guest soloist Emmelyne Ulmer, a Seattle-based timpanist, will perform on Werner Thärichen’s Concerto for Tympani and Orchestra.
Ulmer has played with the Seattle Philharmonic, the Orchester der Technischen Universitaet Wien in Vienna and is a coach with the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. She was a student participant at the Marrowstone Music Festival at Fort Worden and has served as an organizational leader for the festival and as a coach for younger participants.
The concerto brings out many capabilities of the timpani, including its ability to play melodies and even introduce chord structures.
“The interplay and musical conversations with other instruments in the orchestra are unique and intriguing and full of color and really more melodic than may be anticipated,” Ulmer said.
The program, under the direction of Tigran Arakelyan, also includes the L’Arlésienne Suites by Georges Bizet. This music began life in 1872 as incidental music for the drama “The Girl from Arles” by Alphonse Daudet.
Bizet composed 27 different pieces for both background music and entr’actes, pieces performed between acts in a play or opera. This background music turned out to be more popular than the play, so Bizet arranged it into two suites for a full symphony.
For more information, visit www.ptsymphony.org.
