Saratoga Orchestra to present two August concerts
Published 1:30 am Friday, July 31, 2026
Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra will present two concerts in August, including an orchestral performance led by emerging conductors from around the world and a program highlighting traditional African percussion.
Founded in 2007, Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra is a professional ensemble serving Island County audiences. Under the leadership of Anna Edwards, the orchestra has earned national recognition for its innovative programming and commitment to presenting works by women and BIPOC composers alongside orchestral masterworks.
The Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute, or PNWCI, returns Aug. 7 with its annual Summer Festival Concert, featuring the institute’s 2026 conducting fellows leading Whidbey’s Saratoga Orchestra. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 7 at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley.
Since its founding in 2017, PNWCI has welcomed more than 200 conductors from around the world for intensive professional training. Led by internationally acclaimed conductor, composer, and educator Diane Wittry and Dr. Anna Edwards, the Institute offers emerging and established conductors hands-on podium experience, individualized coaching, and the opportunity to work with a professional orchestra.
The concert program includes works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Ethel Smyth, Gabriela Lena Frank and Felix Mendelssohn.
Composer Frank won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Smyth was a pioneering English composer, author and suffragette who spent two months in Holloway Prison after throwing a rock through a politician’s window. Her composition “March of the Women” famously became the anthem of the movement.
A pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. gives audiences the opportunity to meet the participating conductors and learn more about the evening’s music and the art of conducting.
Tickets are $35–$40 and are available through the WICA Box Office.
A second concert, Festival of Global Traditions, begins at 1 p.m. Aug. 15 at Oak Harbor Methodist Church. The program features musical traditions from around the world, including music for the gyil, the traditional xylophone of Ghana, and the embaire, a 21-key wooden log xylophone from Busoga, Uganda. With only a handful of embaires found outside Uganda, the performance offers audiences a rare opportunity to hear the instrument.
Featured artist Professor Mark Allen Stone first studied the embaire with the renowned Nakibembe Xylophone Group while serving as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in Uganda. Since returning to the United States, he has introduced this vibrant tradition to universities across the country, establishing Embaire ensembles at Oakland University, Ohio University, the University of Wisconsin and Western Washington University.
Donations are accepted at the door.
