Carl Hanson enjoys the variety of alternating between playing principle second violin and playing in the first violin section of the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra.
He’s one of several original members still performing with this group; he also sang with the “Port Townsend Orchestra Singers” when Dick Ballou was conductor. Carl served on the orchestra’s board for its first fifteen years and was its president during the transition that brought Dewey Ehling to serve as our Artistic Director/Conductor in 1995.
Though Carl enjoys playing a number of stringed instruments — regularly performing a program he calls “Living Life With Strings Attached” — the violin has been his favorite since sixth grade. While a junior and senior at Lakes High School in Lakewood, Washington, Carl performed with a group of five violinists doing strolling music for special events, including two banquets at the old Olympic Hotel in Seattle. In college he played viola in a string quartet.
A native Washingtonian, Carl moved to Port Townsend in 1984 to serve as the preacher for the Port Townsend Church of Christ. Though known through joining with others to serve needs within the community, he has become known to many as “The Walker” or “Walking Man.”