Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra & Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute Concert

Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute (PNWCI)
hosted by Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra,
returns for its ninth annual program in August.

Led by internationally acclaimed conductor, composer, and educator Diane Wittry and Dr. Anna Edwards, Music Director of Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra, the Institute provides emerging and established conductors with hands-on podium experience, personalized coaching, and the opportunity to work with a professional-level orchestra. Program alumni have gone on to lead orchestras around the world, including Juilliard-trained conductor Tengku Irfan, who is the newly appointed Assistant Conductor of the Seattle Symphony.

PNWCI Summer Festival Concert
Friday, August 7th @ 7:30 p.m.
Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley

A pre-concert talk begins at 6:45 p.m. offers audiences an opportunity to meet the participating conductors and learn more about the music and the art of conducting.

The concert will feature the Institute’s 2026 conductors leading
the Saratoga Orchestra in a program that includes:

Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Ethel Smyth’s Serenade in D
Elegia Andina by 2026 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank;
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, “Italian”

Tickets are $35-40 and available through the WICA Box Office
https://www.wicaonline.org   http://www.sowhidbey.com