March 7, 2011

Hopkins Symphony: ‘Scheherazade’ two ways, for kids and grownups

At a Concert for Children and Families, one attendee is introduced to the French horn.

The Hopkins Symphony Orchestra will offer a weekend of orchestral blockbusters for listeners of all ages.

At 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 12, HSO will present its 19th Annual Free Concert for Children and Families. Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and will illustrate how music can tell stories. After the one-hour program, the audience will be invited onstage to meet the musicians and see their instruments up close.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 13, Gaylin and the orchestra will perform the complete Scheherazade and will welcome pianist Enrico Elisi for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor. Gaylin and HSO concertmaster Pervinca Rista will lead a pre-concert discussion at 2 p.m.

Elisi, who last appeared with the HSO in 2005, is stepping in for Stefan Jackiw, who had to cancel his planned performance. The Italian-born Elisi, a former student of Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute, maintains a busy international career as soloist, chamber musician, teacher, competition judge and conductor. He has just been named to the faculty of the Eastman School of Music.

Both concerts will take place in Shriver Hall Auditorium on the Homewood campus.

No tickets or reservations are needed for the children’s program. Tickets for the Sunday concert, available at the door, are free for Johns Hopkins students and Maryland state employees; $8 for other students, seniors (age 60+) and Johns Hopkins staff, faculty and alumni; and $10 general admission.