PORT TOWNSEND — With a recital called “If It Ain’t Baroque . . . !,” organist Woody Bernas will give the next Candlelight Concert at Trinity United Methodist Church, 609 Taylor St., this Thursday night.
Starting at 7 p.m., Bernas will fill the place with music from the Baroque period as well as the works of modern composers to demonstrate that Trinity’s 2,000-pipe organ has the capability for it all.
Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., with admission a suggested $10 donation for adults, with proceeds to benefit Port Townsend charities and Trinity’s music and historic Victorian restoration programs.
Children will be admitted free, and refreshments will be served after the performance.
Bernas will open the recital with Buxtehude’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air from Orchestral Suite, also in D major.
Pieces from the modern composers Hermann Schroeder, Michael Burkhardt, Gerald Near, John Leavitt and Bernas’ former teacher Marilyn Biery are also on the itinerary.
The organist then will play some chorale preludes, brief compositions based on hymn tunes that are hundreds of years old.
“This concert will offer listeners a rare opportunity to travel back in time” via a sampling of music through the centuries, Bernas said.
Thursday’s Candlelight Concert will be the second public performance of Trinity’s Baroque organ, which is a modern emulation of an instrument built in 1735 by Bach’s friend Gottfried Silbermann of Reinhardsgrimma, Germany.
Bernas, who studied with Biery at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Minnesota, was invited in 2010 to play a series of recitals in Stockholm, Sweden.
There, his performance at the Marcussen and Sons organ in St. Jacob Church was recorded and released on a CD titled “Live in Stockholm.”
The recording will available for sale after his performance Thursday night.
For more information about this and future Candlelight Concerts, phone 360-774-1644.
