This music stirs up a lot of passion.
Take Antonin Dvorak’s “Romance for Violin.” The piece has these “beautiful flowing lines in the winds and strings,” said violinist James Garlick, “that haunt me every time I hear them.”
Then there’s Ravel’s “Tzigane” (“Gypsy”), which Garlick calls a fiery showpiece — but not just that.
“It’s full of inventiveness. Ravel uses harmonics, notes from lightly fingering the violin strings, that had never been seen before” its 1924 premiere in London.
“Most of all, it’s really fun to play,” added the soloist. Garlick, a Port Angeles native, is returning home this week to perform with the Port Angeles Symphony, the orchestra in which he grew up.
This first concert of the spring will start at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 30, in the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave., and as always conductor and music director Jonathan Pasternack will host a short pre-concert chat at 6:40 p.m.
Saturday’s concert includes the Dvorak, which Garlick chose to play in counterpoint to the “Tzigane.”
Garlick has traveled across the United States and to South Africa and Cuba with various ensembles. Juilliard-trained, he now performs with the Minnesota Orchestra and lives in St. Paul, Minn., with his wife Emily James, also a Port Angeles High School alumnus.
Another Ravel work, “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” opens Saturday’s concert. This piece puts Port Townsend oboist Anne Krabill into the bright spotlight.
“Since becoming music director, I have wanted to perform this work with Anne and now we have our chance,” said Pasternack.
While “Tombeau” starts the night, the finale is Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which Ravel orchestrated. This music, Pasternack said, is a marvel. It shows off Ravel’s mastery as well as Mussorgsky’s evocativeness: The composer created it as a tribute to the paintings of Viktor Hartmann, his recently deceased artist friend.
“Pictures,” the conductor added, “builds up to one of orchestral music’s grandest climaxes.”
Tickets to the evening concert range from $15 for students and seniors to $18 general admission and $25 to $35 for premium seats. To reserve, call the Port Angeles Symphony at 360-457-5579, and to buy general seating tickets, visit Port Book and News in Port Angeles or Joyful Noise Music in Sequim. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door. Information about this and the rest of the orchestra’s season can be found at PortAngelesSym phony.org.
The symphony also opens its final rehearsal to the public Saturday morning. In the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, it starts at 10 a.m. with admission at $7.
At both events, youngsters 16 and under are admitted free with a paying adult.
Krabill, who has performed with the Port Angeles Symphony for more than 20 years, remembers the first time she ever played Ravel’s “Tombeau.” She’d just been named the principal oboist in the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which did a recording each week for broadcast on CBC radio.
When the “Tombeau” was scheduled, Krabill got a call from the music librarian, who offered to bring the music to her at home.
“I had somehow missed learning this piece in my training and didn’t really know how difficult it was … So I said that he didn’t need to go out of his way to get the part to me,” she recalled.
The librarian insisted. Krabill was grateful.
“I was so young and inexperienced that I didn’t know enough to be afraid of the piece. I didn’t make that mistake again. The recording went well. But after that I developed practice techniques for it, which I am still using decades later.”
