Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra
Our mission is to entertain, inspire and engage our community through musical excellence and affordable concerts.
These articles highlight our musicians, because we want to celebrate the local talent that makes the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra possible.
PTSO has a group of musicians who have completed 30 years with our organization. We want to honor the dedication and commitment they have shown to building the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra to the vibrant organization it is today. They are shown in the photo below:
Front row (l. to r. ): Pat Yearian, Carl Hanson, Sally Scholz.
Back row (l. to r.): Kristin Smith, Pat Kenna, Nancy Miskimins, Vidya Speck, Steve Ricketts, Chuck Easton.
Pamela Roberts was recognized as a national cello talent by the age of 11.
She served as principal cellist in Washington’s All State Orchestra and the National Congress of Strings in Los Angeles. She was awarded the top music scholarship at the University of Washington, the Brechemin Award, for five years in a row. She received a 3-year fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival and was chosen to participate in the exclusive Cleveland Chamber Music Seminar.
Pamela Roberts became faculty cellist at the University of Puget Sound at the age of 25. She performed as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony and Aspen Music Festival. As a chamber musician she worked with the Philadelphia String Quartet, Northwest Chamber Orchestra and Seattle Early Music Guild.
Roberts was principal cellist of the Tacoma Symphony and 5th Avenue Theater Orchestra, and is currently principal cellist of the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra. She studied cello with Eva Heinitz, Toby Saks, Vivian King, Daniel Lynch and Alan Harris among others. She participated in master classes with Janos Starker, Gabor Reijto, David Soyer and Yo Yo Ma.
Pamela lives in Quilcene with her husband, Howard Gilbert, a well-known orchestral and jazz drummer.
PTLeader article: https://www.ptleader.com/stories/upcoming-orchestra-concert-to-feature-quilcene-cello-soloist,80588
PDN article: https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/entertainment/port-townsend-cellist-ready-to-speak-jazz/
PTSO violinist Tom Berg, age 97, has played violin for almost 90 years.
A life of music is the music of life.
Here he is 1943 and 1961.
Dave Krabill performs on a vintage Heckel bassoon made in 1928. He practices for at least a couple of hours each day.
https://www.ptleader.com/stories/port-townsend-symphony-orchestra-2019-2020-season-opens,65760Leader photo by Chris McDaniel Leader photo by Chris McDaniel Posted Thursday, October 24, 2019 1:49 pm
Chris McDaniel
cmcdaniel@ptleader.com
When Dave Krabill was just a wee lad growing up on an Ohio farm, he gladly traded a pair of udders for ivory keys.
“I practiced the piano an hour a day when I was a kid, and the basson half an hour a day,” Krabill said. “My dad told me I didn’t have to come out and milk the cows in the morning if I practiced the hour of piano. After school, it was in the barn.”
Krabill, 68, of Port Townsend, is principal bassoonist with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra and co-principal bassoonist with the Port Angeles Symphony and the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Even though he has been performing bassoon for about most of his life,Krabill still practices his chops for hours a day. His goal now is to perform “Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major,” by Mozart without errors during the season opening show of the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra.
Continue reading “The Leader: Practicing perfection Bassoonist Dave Krabill featured during PT Symphony Orchestra opener”
David Krabill is principal bassoonist with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra and co-principal bassoonist with the Port Angeles Symphony and the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Originally from Ohio, Dave studied at Kent State University and had further studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He spent several summers at the Blossom Festival of Music studying with members of the Cleveland Orchestra.
He moved to Canada in the early 1970s to play principal bassoon with the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also performed frequently for CBC Radio and Television. Along with his wife, Anne, he was a member of the East Coast Woodwind Trio and the Scotia Winds quintet, and taught bassoon and chamber music at Dalhousie University.
Dave plays on a vintage Heckel bassoon made in 1928.
Dave and Anne raised their four children in Port Townsend and they are delighted that their two grandsons also call Port Townsend home.
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.
Continue reading “CARL HANSON, Violinist”
Maya started playing the violin when she was five years old, then switched to trumpet in fifth grade, which she has stuck with ever since.
Now, as a freshman in high school, she plays with the Port Townsend High School band.
During middle school she was in the All-State band, and this year she is going to compete in the State solo competition inn Ellensburg.
This spring, Maya will be playing trumpet in the school play, Cabaret.
Besides music, Maya loves to write screenplays and argue on the PTHS mock trial team, which she has done for the past two years. She also plays basketball, volleyball, and is on the Knowledge Bowl team at school.
Tusker began playing the viola in seventh grade. Having started the violin at the age of four, he fell in love with the sound of the viola the very first time he heard it played. Though he an still rip a Scottish fiddle tune on the violin, his heart is with the viola.
This spring he will be travelling to Ellensburg to compete in the State solo competition on viola.
This is Tusker’s second year with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra and his first year as principal violist for the Port Townsend High School Orchestra.
He enjoys singing and has sung in the Port Townsend Youth Chorus for the past seven years.
Tusker is on the high school track team, Knowledge Bowl team, PTHS robotics team, and is in the Students for Sustainability club. He enjoys mountain biking, scuba diving, travel, backpacking, fishing, and designing and building just about anything.
Checking in at 97, Tom is the oldest player in the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra.
Tom began playing violin when he was about eight years old. His first violin was handmade by his great-grandfather in Norway. His parents purchased Tom’s second violin in about 1938 from a violin pawn shop in Portland, Oregon. It was a good violin; in fact, it is the same violin that Tom plays today.
During Tom’s career as a licensed mechanical engineer, he played with the Bremerton Symphony for more than two decades.
After moving to the Olympic Peninsula, Tom played with the Port Angeles Symphony for around a dozen years, and for the past 25 years he has played with the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra.
As a performer, recording artist, teacher, and scholar, Gwen Franz is a diverse violist of multiple musical traditions. In 2017, she was awarded a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Washington in classical viola performance, which also included studies within the jazz and ethnomusicology departments.
Her research on improvisation and oral traditions resulted in her thesis topic, “The Homeric Answer: How By-Ear Learning and Improvisation Enhance the Musicianship of Classical Performers.”
Dr. Franz has been featured as a concerto soloist and chamber musician throughout the Pacific Northwest, has toured throughout the United States and Chile.
She has also performed with eclectic musicians such as Darol Anger and Eugene Friesen. In 2013 she released two albums, Airoso, with classical guitarist Hilary Field, and Douce Ambiance, with jazz violinist Michael Gray and cellist James Hinkley.
Her many years of professional orchestra experience include performing with the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Grand Rapids Symphony, Lansing Symphony and Evansville Philharmonic. She recently moved to Port Townsend with her husband, Ernie Franz. (Dec 2018)