The full Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra, with soloist Alexander Tutunov, takes the stage for this fall concert featuring the passionate Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky and the ultra-Romantic Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2. The venue is the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, where conductor Jonathan Pasternack will give a brief pre-concert talk about the music at 6:30 p.m. The 65+ musicians in the orchestra include players from Seattle, Gig Harbor, Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles.
Tutunov, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory who has performed and taught piano in Belarus, China and around the United States, is now a professor of piano and artist in residence at Southern Oregon University. He has played with the Port Angeles Symphony many times, and is known for his blend of warmth and virtuosity.
This second concert of the orchestra's 93rd season pairs Tchaikovsky's piano concerto, with its Russian folk melodies and dance-like finale, with Rachmaninoff's lush, cinematic symphony. It's an evening worthy of Tchaikovsky's feeling that music is a gift that "calms and enlightens our souls."