Music on the Strait to close out summer with Port Angeles performances

Concerts fund scholarships for local music students

By Rachel Busse • August 20, 2025 1:30 am

Music on the Strait, founded in 2018 by locally-raised musicians James Garlick and Richard O’Neill, returns for two weekends with a focus on family-friendly, community-centered music. The event funds scholarships for area music students.

This year’s festival, which spans from Aug. 30-Sept. 6, features two programs at Peninsula College’s Maier Hall and two at Field Arts & Events Hall, 201 W. Front St., featuring pianist Jeremy Denk, a festival favorite, alongside world-renowned string artists.

Maier Hall concerts are now sold out, but tickets remain for two events at Field Hall on Labor Day at 3 p.m. and Sept. 6 at 7 p.m.

The Labor Day show will feature works from Beethoven and Reinaldo Hahn, the Venezuelan-born composer and conductor who stole the heart of writer Marcel Proust. This show will also feature a popular pre-concert talk with Classic KING FM 98.1’s Lisa Bergman, this time in Field Hall’s Sunset Lounge.

Also in the Sunset Lounge, concert-goers will have the opportunity to hear a performance from recipients of Dick and Alice Rapasky Community Music Scholarships. The Rapasky Scholarship Committee is now in its fourth year of funding private lessons for local music students.

Denk’s second show, at 7 p.m. on Sept. 6th, features 2025 composer-in-residence Gabriela Lena Frank, who was named by the Washington Post as one of the 35 most influential women in music history. Frank joins Denk on the piano for her Sonata Serrana No 1 for four hands. Faure’s Piano Quartet in C minor will close out the Music on the Strait season.

The concert will be preceded by a pre-concert talk and performance from the PAHS Chamber Orchestra beginning at 6 p.m.

The performances at Field Hall will provide a chance to taste Music on the Strait’s collaboration with Camaraderie Cellars. A new wine, called Rondo, was developed in partnership with the award-winning local winemakers, and the bottle’s label features art by local designer Tom Eykemans.

The performance will be a chance to see and purchase copies of this year’s festival poster, with artwork by Washington-based artist Shawna Marie Franklin. Each year, the festival highlights a local artist to commemorate the festival through visual art.