PORT ANGELES — Brooklyn, N.Y., native Jonathan Pasternack, a conductor who’s been leading orchestras since he was a teenage college student, has been chosen as the next Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra music director.
A nine-member search committee selected Pasternack from the eight candidates who have auditioned here since last September, and it was an exceedingly tough decision, committee chairwoman Marie Meyers said Friday.
“We had the musicians rank all of the conductors,” she said, “on how they connected with the musicians and elicited their best efforts” in concert.
“They overwhelmingly had great responses for Jonathan,” said Meyers, also a flutist in the symphony.
Starts July 1
Pasternack, 46, has conducted orchestras, operas and ballets from Washington state to Massachusetts and from London to The Hague — and is making plans now to move to Port Angeles for his July 1 start date.
His annual salary for the three-quarters-time position is in the advertised range of $40,000 to $45,000. The job does not come with benefits, Meyers said.
Earlier this month, Pasternack finished a yearlong engagement as director of orchestral activities at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
He will be working in Switzerland and Spain for part of the summer.
When he got the phone call from symphony board President Mary Ann Unger, Pasternack was visiting family in New York City — and “completely thrilled” to hear from Port Angeles.
He auditioned for the conductor’s post last fall, rehearsing with and leading the symphony in the Nov. 1 all-Beethoven concert.
“I was struck by the enthusiasm and the level of talent in the community,” he said. “It’s very exciting for me.
“Really, where classical music is going to come alive is in the community orchestras and youth orchestras.”
The Port Angeles Symphony’s 55 musicians range from 15-year-old first violinist Kate Powers to timpanist Ed Grier, who will turn 81 this summer.
“He had a good beat. That’s all I care about,” quipped Grier, a symphony player for a good five decades now.
“I look forward to his guidance in the future,” Grier added.
Long search
The musicians and their audiences have been through a long search together.
Conductor hopefuls included Port Angeles School District educators Ron Jones and James Ray, along with Kristin Quigley Brye, a music teacher and director of musical theater at Peninsula College, while the out-of-towners were Richard Sparks from Texas, Jooyong Ahn from Tennessee, Wesley Schulz from Bainbridge Island and Matthew Savery from Montana.
Jones, who conducted the symphony last fall in its Pops & Picnic concerts, will return for a pops encore: concerts in Port Angeles and Sequim on Sept. 25 and 26.
Known for taking the Port Angeles High School Orchestra to Carnegie Hall every four years since 1989, Jones has over the years helped many symphony members develop as musicians.
Expand reach
Pasternack, for his part, hopes to expand the orchestra’s reach by visiting schools across Clallam County and even embarking on a regional concert tour.
“I’m not sure these ideas are new,” he said, “but I would build on things done in the past.
“The orchestra really belongs to the whole community of the North Olympic Peninsula,” so West End concerts, for example, could be on the horizon.
“We get musicians and audience members from Forks,” he said, “and it would be great to go out there and bring the music.”
Pasternack added that he’s long imagined what it would be like to live and make music here.
He first visited Port Angeles in 1995, when he was relatively new to the conducting game. Not too new, though: Pasternack led his first orchestral concert when he was an 18-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He went on to found the MIT Chamber Orchestra, which he led for three seasons before coming West to earn a master’s degree and doctorate in music at the University of Washington.
Career highlights
Other career highlights so far might include a top award at the sixth Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition in 2002 in Barcelona, Spain, where he was the only American invited to compete.
Pasternack has also recorded a CD on the Naxos label, in which he leads the London Symphony Orchestra in Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin Suite and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.
The disc got good reviews, including one from The Seattle Times that called the music “especially delectable in Pasternack’s hands.”
The Port Angeles Symphony, founded in 1932, has had just five conductors.
Most recent was Adam Stern of Seattle, who led the symphony for nine years before the board of directors opted not to renew his contract in May 2014, saying it wanted a more community-focused orchestra.
Now Pasternack is poised to direct the ensemble in its 2015-16 season, to include 16 symphony and chamber orchestra performances from this November through next May.
The Port Angeles Symphony’s members, Pasternack said, showed him their dedication to sharing great music.
“I am thrilled and honored to be associated with them,” he said.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
