PORT ANGELES — Since being founded about 84 years ago, the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra has introduced classical music to generations of North Olympic Peninsula residents.
“The Port Angeles Symphony has been the heart of the performing arts” in the region “since 1932 when we were established,” said Mark Wendeborn, the symphony’s executive director.
“Literally generations of people on the [Olympic] Peninsula have grown up to the Port Angeles Symphony.”
What began with a few fiddlers and horn players performing light opera and Sousa marches in each other’s homes has evolved into an award-winning orchestra consisting of about 80 volunteer musicians.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the symphony relies on public donations to continue offering public performances.
“Without the generosity and support of our patrons, the orchestra would not be able to exist in its present form,” said Jonathan Pasternack, Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor.
“The fact that Port Angeles — as small a city as it is — has its own symphony orchestra . . . is indicative of a community that really wants and supports this kind of arts.”
Fundraiser gala
The symphony’s biggest fundraiser and auction of the year, “Oh What a Night! Treasuring our Symphony,” is slated for Saturday evening at the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St.
About 70 percent of the symphony’s annual fundraising budget comes from this event, Wendeborn said.
The gala begins at 6 p.m. with wine and hors d’oeuvres as guests bid on silent auction items and enjoy music by an ensemble of musicians.
There also will be a dinner buffet.
Items offered for silent auction bidding include tickets to a wide variety of events, gift certificates and a unique selection of gourmet wines, foodstuffs and merchandise.
Live auction items include a seven day Holland America Cruise to the Caribbean or Mexico, one week in a 5 star resort in the French Quarter of New Orleans, an African safari, art and other items.
Tickets are $75 and must be purchased in advance.
For more information, call 457-5579 or visit www.portangelessymphony.org.
Fundraising goal
Through Saturday’s fundraiser, the symphony hopes to raise at least $25,000, Wendeborn said.
The money will be used for general operating expenses, he said.
“In order to produce concerts, the amount that we are able to charge for ticket prices cover about half of the expenses to produce a concert. That is typical for arts organizations.”
If the symphomy “had to charge enough for tickets to pay for the cost of putting on the event, the ticket prices would be unaffordable,” Wendeborn said.
As such, “we supplement with fundraising activities.”
The ability to offer lower ticket prices allows the symphony to reach a much broader swath of local residents, Wendenborn said.
“We try to keep our ticket prices as affordable as we possibly can so that everyone can experience the orchestra,” he said, adding there are about five symphony concerts, six chamber orchestra concerts and two pops concerts each year.
Many local residents “would not have the opportunity to travel to places like Seattle or other big cities in order to experience quality live orchestral music” such as that offered by the symphony, Wendeborn continued.
Additionally “we take our music to the West End through our Adventures in Music program, and some of those children have never been out of their communities and never would have been exposed to classical music had we not gone out there through that school program and presented it for them,” Wendeborn said.
“We see a great opportunity here for people to experience classical music, and they just wouldn’t have that opportunity otherwise.”
The classical music performed by the symphony “has universal appeal,” Pasternack said.
“It crosses all economic and cultural backgrounds because it has such power to inspire and to express a whole range of human emotion.”
And, access to live classical music enhances the quality of life for area residents, Pasternack said.
“I think that live music performance . . . is a key element to human existence, really,” he said.
“It is something that I couldn’t live without and a lot of people in the world can’t live without.
“I think this tradition of what we call art music, [or] classical music in general, is just as vital and just as meaningful to us now as when it was written — either 10 years ago, or 100 years ago or 200 years ago.”
