PORT TOWNSEND — There aren’t too many Juilliard-educated musicians whose trajectory began on Olympic Peninsula transit buses.
But that’s where and how a 13-year-old Matthew Daline made it from his hometown of Port Townsend to Port Angeles, where he was among the younger players in the symphony orchestra.
A violinist and violist, Daline also took lessons with then-Port Angeles Symphony conductor Nico Snel. Then he rode the bus back home.
Daline, with pianist Jennifer Chung, will play two recitals this week in Port Angeles and Sequim. He won the Port Angeles Symphony’s concerto competition at age 14. Then, while in high school, he won the first Stars of Tomorrow talent competition in Port Townsend.
He also traveled — by bus, naturally — to Seattle to play in the youth symphony there.
After graduating from Port Townsend High School in 1990, Daline was accepted to the Juilliard School in New York City, and he made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 20.
Since graduating from Juilliard and earning his master’s degree in music at Yale, Daline has traveled the world, become an educator and married Chung, whom he met more than a decade ago at a chamber music concert at Louisiana State University.
The couple will play a wide-ranging program in the first chamber concerts of the Port Angeles Symphony’s new season. First, Daline and Chung will step onto the stage at 7 p.m. Friday at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave. in Port Angeles. Their second recital will be at Sequim’s Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave., at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets are $20 at portangelessymphony.org, Port Book and News in Port Angeles and at the door both nights. For more information, contact the symphony office at pasymphony@olypen.com or 360-457-5579.
With music stretching from Mozart to Hovhaness, Daline and Chung seek to give their audiences a full experience of music across the centuries.
“Another theme is the tremendous amount of emotion that’s in this music,” Daline said.
After Mozart’s rare sonata in E minor will come Florence Price’s “Adoration” for violin and piano, a piece Daline said is both lyrical and sacred.
Chung, for her part, calls the next piece, from Franz Liszt’s “Années de pèlerinage I,” quite challenging. Liszt himself was a great pianist; “all of his compositions are considered very hard.”
At the same time, the music fascinates Chung.
“There is so much romantic musicality in this piece. It’s a nice combination,” she said of virtuosic passages and romance.
“Jennifer can play anything on the piano,” Daline added.
Also on the program: Brahms’ Sonata for Viola and Piano No. 1 in F minor, and Hovhaness’ “Chahagir” (“Torch”), an emotionally fiery piece for solo viola.
Daline and Chung, who is originally from Taiwan, were preparing to tour Asia when the COVID-19 pandemic overtook live performances around the globe. All of their concerts were canceled. Their son had been born not long before that time, so they settled in with him and waited for the world to reopen.
Then an opportunity arose for them to move to Port Townsend and help Daline’s mother with her house. They jumped at the chance and have since established a music studio and have begun performing together again.
Their son, now 6, is playing a little violin, but is mostly into Pokemon, Daline said.
Daline expressed his gratitude to Port Angeles Symphony conductor and artistic director Jonathan Pasternack for inviting him and Chung to give this week’s recitals.
It will be a thrill to hear this duo, Pasternack said. Every season, he seeks to feature one or more locally raised musicians who have gone on to professional careers.
After listening to Daline’s recording of Bartok’s viola concerto, “I was just wowed by his incredible technique and the depth of his musicianship,” Pasternack said.
With Daline and Chung taking the stage, “our audiences are in for a special treat,” Pasternack said.
The violist and the pianist agreed that, these days, they are growing together through their music.
“Jennifer always brings new ideas to the mix,” Daline said.
Traveling together — on the same performing schedule — is “really great,” he added.
And they’re not taking the transit bus.
“I finally have a car,” Daline quipped.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
