PORT ANGELES — While two Music on the Strait festival events have already sold out, tickets are still available for the Saturday, Sept. 1 community concert finale, organizers said.
That concert brings together MacArthur fellowship recipient Jeremy Denk on piano; Seattle Symphony violinist Elisa Barston; cellist Ani Aznavoorian of Camerata Pacifica; James Garlick, a Minnesota Orchestra violinist originally from Port Angeles; and internationally touring violist Richard Yongjae O’Neill, who grew up in Sequim.
The ensemble, formed especially for this new chamber music festival, will play a program of Ravel, Dvorak, Ives and Beethoven at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave.
Admission to the 5 p.m. concert is pay-what-you-wish.
Reservations are available at MusicontheStrait.com, along with information about supporting the festival.
Donations are accepted on the site and at the door; the event is a collaboration with the nonprofit Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra.
Garlick and O’Neill are the artistic directors of Music on the Strait. They wanted a festival for the rural county where, as boys, they first discovered classical music.
Thanks to friendships with other internationally known performers — including fellow alumni of Ohio’s Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School in New York City — they’ve put together an illustrious lineup.
Music on the Strait’s first two events feature O’Neill performing Rebecca Clarke’s viola sonata Thursday and Denk in a rare solo recital Friday, Aug. 31, both in Maier Hall at Peninsula College.
Tickets went on sale June 15; they sold out within weeks.
There is a waiting list; to be placed on it, email music onthestrait@gmail.com.
Holy Trinity Lutheran, the venue for the Sept. 1 community concert, is more than twice the size of Maier Hall, so there’s a good supply of tickets available, Garlick said earlier this week.
All three performances feature an opening talk by Lisa Bergman, a pianist and classical music host on KING-FM of Seattle. She’ll offer insights into each evening’s music.
Bergman, Garlick and O’Neill all have appeared as guest soloists with the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra. It was after the two men’s performances with that orchestra last year that they dreamed up the idea for Music on the Strait.
Garlick is a graduate of Port Angeles High School’s orchestra program while O’Neill spent his musically formative years in Sequim studying with Deborah and Phil Morgan-Ellis.
Both men travel the world these days: Garlick returned this week from the Minnesota Orchestra’s five-city Music for Mandela tour of South Africa.
At the same time, he’s impressed by his hometown’s love of live music and its openness to a brand-new festival on Labor Day weekend.
“We’ve seen a huge outpouring of support,” Garlick said, adding that while a few donors are from Seattle, most are local.
“We want to start thinking about next year,” he said, “and whether to remain this size or grow into two weeks in August.”
