It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas on the Olympic Peninsula.
The Port Angeles Symphony’s annual Holiday Concert breaks out some traditional favorites — the “Greensleeves Fantasia,” Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” and the “Christmas Festival” medley, among others — at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center at 304 E. Park Ave. on Saturday, Dec. 10.
The 70-piece orchestra, which has just begun its 84th season, will be led once again by conductor/music director Jonathan Pasternack, who will guide the symphony in a program of traditional Christmas and Hanukkah music, and — with help from the Symphony Chorus — wrap up the night with an audience sing-along.
Pasternack, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native who has led orchestras around the world, will give a short talk on the music at 6:40 p.m. The Holiday Concert starts at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $15 for general admission, $20 and $30 for reserved seats depending on section, and $12 for students and seniors’ general admission. Youths 16 and younger are admitted free with an adult.
Ticket outlets include The Joyful Noise Music Center in Sequim, Port Book and News in Port Angeles and at brownpapertickets.com. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door on concert night.
As always with symphony concerts, the final rehearsal at the high school performing arts center on Saturday morning is open to the public. Admission is $5 per person or $10 per family.
Concert lineup
The evening will get going with music Pasternack calls “gorgeous” — Anatol Liadov’s “Eight Russian Folk Songs,” which include a Round Dance and a Village Dance Song.
“It features all of the sections in the orchestra,” he said of the set, adding that the sound is pure joy.
“We’re also doing a Hanukkah medley for the first time in a while,” Pasternack said, noting that Jeff Tyzik’s arrangement of Hanukkah songs, “Chanukah Festival Overture,” has a klezmer-inspired clarinet solo in the middle of it.
The concert also includes:
• Leroy Anderson’s “Christmas Festival,” a medley featuring “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and other carols;
• The “Greensleeves Fantasia” by Ralph Vaughan Williams;
• Excerpts from “The Nutcracker,” including the Russian Dance, the Chinese Dance and the “Pine Forest in Winter” pas de deux;
• “O Holy Night,” arranged for orchestra by John Rutter;
• “Christmas Day,” Gustav Holst’s medley including “Good Christian Men Rejoice,” and,
• “The Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah.”
The audience sing-along will range from “O Little Town of Bethlehem” to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” along with other carols, with lyric sheets provided.
About the symphony
The Port Angeles Symphony features musicians from all over Clallam and Jefferson counties. This season, Pasternack noted, the orchestra is welcoming players such as violinist JoDee Ahmann back from long hiatuses.
Another Holiday Concert tradition will return Dec. 10: sales of Golden Tickets. One hundred of these are sold between December and March 25, when the symphony’s biggest fundraiser, the “Applause! Auction,” is held. Each Golden Ticket costs $50 and has a chance at winning the ticket-holder choice of any live-auction item. This includes dinners and travel packages. Golden Tickets have been known to sell out at the holiday concert in past years, Pasternack said.
For information about the tickets, the concert and future Port Angeles Symphony events, call 457-5579, email PASymphony@olypen.com or visit www.PortAngelesSymphony.org.
