Otto Smith is a Port Townsend resident and a long-time percussionist in the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra.
This June, Otto will play concertina in the west coast premiere of James Cohn’s “Concertina Concerto” accompanied by members of the chamber orchestra.
Otto moved to Port Townsend from Seattle in 1979, and he’d been playing Irish music on concertina for about a year or two by then. He’d been playing backup guitar in an Irish band, and someone lent him a concertina, which he eventually purchased. He’s been playing concertina ever since — over forty years, now.
Eventually, Otto heard rumors about classical music written for concertina, and began investigating. Because concertina has a similar range as violin, Otto started playing duets written for two violins with his wife Kristen, she played violin and he played his concertina.
Quotes from Otto:
“We did the Bartok duets at some point.”
“The concertina was originally a classical instrument, invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone — a physicist known for his work on the Wheatstone Bridge, a circuit designed to allow you to measure unknown electrical resistance. There’s at least one concert from the 19th century, headlining Clara Schumann, which included a concertina concerto.”
“Bernard Shaw I think was the one who promoted it fairly heavily.”
“But as I worked on it and worked on it, it began to be clearer and clearer and sound more and more beautiful to me.”
“I was thinking about doing the Malique again, you know, but I didn’t want to do the same concerto all over.”
“I don’t think that any of the concertina players who exist today have ever really played with an orchestra much. And I don’t think they really have a concept of what you have to do with an orchestra. They play with piano accompanists and they play in groups of two and three and maybe four. And some of the players play in the concertina bands, which is as close as you’re going to get to an orchestra. And they are really fun. It’s fun to play in one of those bands, but none of them have that orchestra experience. So that makes a big difference, I think.”
“A good concertina lasts forever!” – George Bernard Shaw
Otto loves music. One of his hobbies is transcribing handwritten scores using LilyPond. Thanks to Otto’s music notation efforts, the musicians playing in the June 2019 chamber concert series have had a much easier time learning and rehearsing Cohn’s Concertina Concerto.