PORT ANGELES — Andre Feriante of Seattle will bring a few of his favorite instruments — “probably seven,” he said — for his seasonal show “StringStories” at 2 p.m. Sunday.
The show will be presented at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center gallery at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., amid its Art Convergence 2014 Juried Exhibition of work by North Olympic Peninsula artists.
Tickets, available online at www.pafac.org, are $12 for fine arts center members and $15 for non-members. Seating will be limited.
For his performance Sunday, Feriante will use a variety of instruments, several handmade by Northwest artisans.
“I’m doing the same type of thing on different related instruments,” he said.
Among them is a harp guitar, an acoustic guitar with added base strings.
“The attached acoustic arm looks like a harp,” Feriante said. “It does add a lot to the resonance of the sound.”
He’ll have a couple of banjos built by a Salem, Ore., craftsman, with nylon strings, which makes the sound “a little softer,” he said.
Along with his main instrument, a Spanish guitar, he’ll also have different types of ukuleles made by David Poplar of Sequim.
Feriante also plays the mandolin.
A singer/songwriter, he will offer both songs and “song poems.”
“I get a rhythm on guitar and start speaking a poem,” some original, some by favorites such as Rumi or Garcia Lorca, he said.
“It’s a little bit like a song,” he added.
As a teen in Rome, Feriante, who was born in Italy, discovered Flamenco guitar.
Soon after, he switched to classical.
“That was my journey for many years,” he said.
Some 20 years ago in Seattle, he began blending musical traditions and now performs a fusion of classical, Flamenco, Brazilian and folk with “a little bit of pop music.”
On Sunday, he’ll also perform some Christmas songs “to give a holiday feel to the show.”
Feriante’s first performance in Port Angeles was at the invitation of the late Richard Schneider, a luthier in Sequim
who made the Kasha-Schneider guitar.
Schneider invited Feriante to Port Angeles in 1995 to perform on the modern classical guitar internationally known for its sound.
Since then, Feriante has “played there pretty much every year,” he said.
Robin Anderson, fine arts center director, said that Feriante has been “a tremendous supporter of the fine arts center for over 10 years.
His concerts are constantly changing, Anderson said.
“He keeps his music fresh and interesting.”
Feriante described the fine arts center as an intimate venue with great acoustics — and sometimes, a little something extra.
“I start playing, and I hear the birds singing. During the concert, we may get a increased choir of birds outside.”
He said he tells people in Seattle to visit both the gallery and Webster’s Woods, the outdoor art installations that surround the center.
“That type of installation rivals anything I’ve seen in the city,” he said.
He told of an unusual audience he once had.
Some years ago, he prepared for a Port Angeles performance by practicing in his room at the Red Lion Hotel, seated before sliding glass doors and looking out on the harbor.
“This one little raccoon comes up and looks in and stares at me, and then another one comes up and stares at me,” Feriante said.
“At a certain point, I had four raccoons there, and three of them had their paws on the window.
“It was my pre-performance audience.”
Art Convergence, which runs through Jan. 9, is a collection of 40 pieces of work, most of them by artists from Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend, in a variety of styles and media.
The pieces are available for purchase as holiday gifts.
The fine arts center gallery is open from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday to Sunday.
Webster’s Woods is open daylight hours year round.
Admission is free to both.
For more information, see www.pafac.org or call 360-457-3532.
________
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsula
dailynews.com.
