By Diane Urbani de la Paz

For Peninsula Daily News

PORT ANGELES — “It doesn’t get more beautiful than the Four Last Songs,” said Jonathan Pasternack, conductor and music director of the Port Angeles Symphony.

These songs, to be performed by the full orchestra with soprano soloist Kristin K. Vogel, are Richard Strauss’ gift to the world, Pasternack said. They’re among the works that make the composer immortal.

In creating the program for the first full symphony concert of its 90th anniversary season this Saturday, Pasternack surrounded the songs with two other masterworks. First, Liszt’s Symphonic Poem No. 3, “Les Preludes,” will begin the event. Then, after the four songs, comes the finale: the Seventh Symphony by Beethoven, the source of inspiration for many composers who came after.

For the first time since February 2020, Pasternack will give a short pre-concert chat at 6:30 p.m. The evening performance will start at 7:30 p.m. at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave. Those who like to attend in the daytime are invited to the public dress rehearsal there at 10 a.m.

Tickets are available at the auditorium door and at portangelessymphony.org, at Port Book and News in downtown Port Angeles or by phoning the symphony office at 360-457-5579.

At all of the symphony’s performances this season, youth ages 18 and younger are admitted free with a ticketed adult. Prices for adults range from $18 to $35 depending on section, while tickets are $15 for seniors and college students.

“Masks are still required for now, to protect the most vulnerable among us,” Pasternack noted.

“Beethoven 7 is my absolute favorite composition, to play and to listen to,” said Krista Smith, co-principal French horn player with the symphony.

This piece changed music history, she added. Smith has loved Beethoven and his successors since she was in elementary school on Long Island, N.Y. She took up French horn in fourth grade, went on to the Juilliard School in New York City, then performed with numerous ensembles. These include the Boston Symphony, the New Hampshire Symphony and the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco.

Smith retired and moved to a house on Freshwater Bay in 2020. A neighbor introduced her to Pasternack and the Port Angeles Symphony, and now she’s part of the French horn section that includes Bruce Kelley, Nicholas Jones and Kat Creekmore.

When not rehearsing and performing with the symphony, Smith is a lieutenant with the Joyce Fire Department; she was firefighter of the year in 2021.

“She is a very special player,” Pasternack said of Smith.

He also hailed Vogel, who has appeared twice before with the orchestra in Port Angeles.

“She can do anything with her voice,” he said, adding he believes Vogel has a particular affinity for German repertoire, of which the Four Last Songs are a part.

For those in the audience who don’t speak German, the concert program includes Dorthe Grube Porter’s translation of the Four Last Songs into English.

This 90th anniversary season, Pasternack said, presents five full symphony concerts between now and May. They will be nights to remember, the conductor promised.

“I really wanted to do some powerhouse programming. So every concert is going to have a grand masterpiece — and this Saturday’s has three of them.”

The next concert in the 90th anniversary season is set for Dec. 10, when Pasternack, the orchestra and Port Angeles-born soloist Stephen Schermer will premiere a new double-bass concerto.

Guest composer Sarah Louise Bassingthwaighte has written the work especially for the Port Angeles Symphony.

“It is so thrilling,” Pasternack added, “to return to the concert stage with the orchestra, and make music for our community.”

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend.