PORT TOWNSEND — The 2016 Olympic Music Festival continues this weekend with three performances at Fort Worden State Park.
The performances will feature musicians from GardenMusic — a Miami, Fla.-based festival that tours throughout the United States.
The performances will be at 2 p.m. Saturday and again at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sunday in the 275-seat Joseph F. Wheeler Theater at 25 Eisenhower Way.
The Sunday morning performance will be a special concert for children ages 4 to 12 and their families. The hour-long performance will focus on how teamwork and friendship in music can inspire the imagination, according to a news release.
GardenMusic is led by Teddy Abrams, a longtime OMF artist and Louisville Orchestra music director. Abrams served as assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012 to 2014.
Abrams is joined by Harrison Hollingsworth, a violinist and principal bassonist with the New York City Ballet Orchestra; Gabriel Globus-Hoenich, a percussionist and GardenMusic education director; Nathan Farrington, a vocalist and double bassist; Julio Elizalde, OMF artistic director; and violinist Tessa Lark.
GardenMusic’s unique programming breaks down musical barriers by combining classical masterworks with musical styles such as jazz, bluegrass, Latin and folk, according to a news release.
“So many of my most cherished musical memories come from my years as a participant at GardenMusic in Miami,” Elizalde said.
“GardenMusic has some of the most uniquely talented and versatile musicians I’ve ever had the privilege of performing with,” Elizalde continued.
“They’re capable of playing multiple instruments, numerous styles, and care deeply about the educational power of music. Their commitment to this innovative style of programming makes music feel alive in a way that you rarely hear anywhere.”
The group will announce musical selections from the stage during each performance.
“You have to imagine this like going to a restaurant and not knowing what the menu will be,” Elizalde said.
“There is a palpable excitement when the entire audience doesn’t know whether Beethoven or Bossa Nova will come next.”
Abrams is a multi-instrumentalist pianist, clarinetist, composer and conductor.
Recent guest conducting highlights include engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony and Louisiana and New Mexico Philharmonics, according to his biography.
From 2008 to 2011, Abrams was the conducting fellow and assistant conductor of the New World Symphony.
He has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras, and has performed chamber music with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Gilbert Kalish, Time for Three and John Adams.
Hollingsworth has performed concertos with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and peforms recitals everywhere from the Kennedy Center to La Mortella in Ischia, Italy.
As a teacher, Harrison has given classes at the Manhattan School for Music as well as the Chautauqua Music Festival, and has served as principal bassoon with the Chautauqua Symphony, The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestras of St. Luke’s and Mostly Mozart.
Globus-Hoenich is one of the founders of Drumming for Social Change, an organization dedicated to researching and developing percussion based educational programming, according to his biography.
He recently spent more than a month studying Brazilian percussion in that country, and said he is now researching how percussion and folkloric music can be used as conduit for social change.
Globus-Hoenich also leads the 12 piece timba band, GGH and The People of Earth, for whom he composes, arranges and plays percussion.
Farrington has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony, the Aspen Music Festival Conducting Orchestra and the Minnesota Sinfonia, according to his biography.
He appears regularly in the bass sections of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Columbus Symphony and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra.
Lark, 25, is the 2012 winner of the Naumburg International Violin Award, and in 2014 received a silver medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, making her the highest-ranked American-born winner in the competition’s history, according to her biography.
At age 16, Lark was soloist for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and has since then performed concerti with symphony orchestras around the globe.
Keeping in touch with her Kentucky roots, Lark said she enjoys playing bluegrass and Appalachian music.
Lark perfroms on a 1683 “ex-Gingold” Stradivari violin, named after the eminent violinist Josef Gingold, to whom it once belonged, according to the New York Times.
The violin is on loan from the Josef Gingold Fund for the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.
Tickets for the afternoon performances are $33 or $40, depending on the section desired. Tickets are free for youths ages 7 to 12, although seats must be reserved in advance.
General admission tickets for the Sunday morning children’s performance are $8 for children 7 to 12 and tickets are free for kids younger than 3, although seats must be reserved in advance.
For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit www.olympicmusicfestival.org.
GardenMusic consists of Teddy Abrams, Gabriel Globus-Hoenich, Nathan Farrington, Julio Elizalde and violinist Tessa Lark, seen here. — Olympic Music Festival.
