PORT ANGELES — Where Kerry Turner lives in central Europe, Mozart is in the blood. And Turner, a Texan turned European, is about to bring that passion to Port Angeles and Sequim.
He’s a horn soloist, an unusual featured artist for the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and he’ll be here to start the ensemble’s new season of concerts this coming weekend.
Tickets for the concerts are on sale now.
Tickets cost $12 for general seating at both Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra concerts: 7 p.m. Friday at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave., Port Angeles, and 7 p.m. Saturday at the Sequim Worship Center, 640 N. Sequim Ave., Sequim.
Outlets include Port Book and News, 104 E. First St. in Port Angeles, and The Joyful Noise Music Center, 112 W. Washington St. in Sequim. Ticket buyers also can call the Port Angeles Symphony office at 360-457-5579. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door.
Turner, who will travel to the Pacific Northwest from his home in Luxembourg, will offer Mozart’s Second Horn Concerto in E-flat Major. The evening’s program also includes Haydn’s Sixth Symphony, known as “Le Matin,” or “The Morning,” and a little-known Handel piece, “The Overture to Rodrigo.”
Marie Meyers, a Port Angeles Symphony flutist, percussionist and board president, connected Turner with the Port Angeles Symphony. She met him in the 1990s when she was teaching music at Hahn High School in Germany.
Turner, a longtime member of the Luxembourg Philharmonic, played for many years in the internationally known American Horn Quartet — which paid a visit to Meyers’ students. After staying in touch, the quartet also performed for high school students on Guam when Meyers taught there.
In both places, she recalled being “wowed” by the players’ flawless skills.
For his part, Turner revels in the chance to bring Mozart alive in Sequim and Port Angeles, two places he’s not yet been.
“I like to approach this concerto with the idea that the correct interpretation is already there, in the ether,” he said. “It’s up to me to pluck it out of the air and serve it to the audience.”
A native of San Antonio, Turner took up the horn at age 11, encouraged by his band-director father. He went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music and then at the Academy of Music in Stuttgart, Germany, where he won a Fulbright scholarship.
In the years since, he’s raised his family in Luxembourg while working as a performer, teacher and composer.
Left-handed and possessed of a good ear, he’s got two things necessary to play “this cantankerous instrument,” as Turner put it.
Inspired by Hermann Baumann, the renowned horn soloist and teacher in Stuttgart, Turner said he strives for the high standard of style and musicianship Baumann taught him.
When things are flowing well on stage, Turner said, “I hear him.”
Turner noted, too, that he delights in coming to a community where the symphony is well-attended. A thriving local arts scene, he said, is a magical thing.
Jonathan Pasternack, conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony, chose the program for the October concerts.
“The Handel is a lovely nugget,” he said. “Teacher and student, as well as good friends, their music complements each other’s.”
These Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra concerts are the start of the nonprofit symphony’s 85th season. Packages of season tickets are still available for concerts running this month through spring 2018.
For a brochure and details, call the symphony office at 360-457- 5579 or email PASymphony@olypen.com.
