Columbia Orchestra

After a season finale that took them deep into the heart of Mother Russia via the searingly intense 5th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich and the sweeping romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto, Jason Love and his Columbia Orchestra are set for a walk on the lighter side. That promenade will come in a pair of concerts that will conclude the local orchestra's 25th-anniversary season. At 8 p.m. Saturday, members of the orchestra will come together for an intimate, collegial evening of chamber music at Christ Episcopal Church, 6800 Oakland Mills Road in Columbia.

Jason Love and his Columbia Orchestra concluded the ensemble's 25th anniversary season at the Jim Rouse Theatre on Saturday evening by staring down the turbulent 5th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich. And true to form, neither Love nor his players flinched. Shostakovich spent most of his artistic life being bullied and harassed by the Soviet government, which perceived the moody ambiguity of his music as a threat to the dictum that "scientific socialism" would produce nothing but smiles of gratitude in Stalin's Communist paradise.

Jason Love and his Columbia Orchestra concluded the ensemble's 25th anniversary season at Jim Rouse Theatre on Saturday evening by staring down the turbulent 5th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich. And true to form, neither Love nor his players flinched. Shostakovich spent most of his artistic life being bullied and harassed by the Soviet government, which perceived the moody ambiguity of his music as a threat to the dictum that "scientific socialism" would produce nothing but smiles of gratitude in Stalin's Communist paradise.

The Columbia Orchestra will present "A Young People's Concert" at 3 p.m. Saturday at Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, 10431 Twin Rivers Road in Columbia. A Musical Instrument Petting Zoo will start at 2 p.m. Children will have the opportunity to see, hear, touch and play orchestral instruments. Musical Director Jason Love says the program, "Music Around the World," includes pieces from Finland, Russia, England, Japan and the United States. The concert is an educational outreach program designed to introduce young children to the instruments and music of the orchestra, and will include audience interaction.

Usually, it is unsuspecting celebrities who play This Is Your Life surrounded by family and friends to celebrate the march from obscurity to wide acclaim. This weekend in Columbia, though, an orchestra will relive its past and celebrate its present in a grand musical program guaranteed to provide nostalgic tugs at the heartstrings. On Saturday evening, the Columbia Orchestra, Howard County's leading ensemble for instrumental music, will take the Jim Rouse Theatre stage to pay tribute to its Heritage of Harmony in a celestial program of Haydn, Bruch, Weber, Brahms and Beethoven.

The musicians of the Columbia Orchestra echoed John Masefield's poetic call to go "down to the seas again," courtesy of a pair of oceanographically charged works by Sir Edward Elgar and contemporary composer Tobias Picker on Saturday night. Sir Edward's Sea Pictures, a lovely orchestral song-cycle for mezzo-soprano, and Picker's The Encantadas, a musical travelogue of the "enchanted" Galapagos Islands employing a text by Herman Melville, dominated the program. Picker, that rarest of breeds -- a modern composer whose works are being embraced with enthusiasm while he is still alive -- was on hand to narrate Melville's ode to shifting winds, vicious currents, dancing penguins, pensive pelicans and giant tortoises that hark back to an age when super-sized amphibians and their reptilian colleagues ruled Earth.

Composer Tobias Picker will join the Columbia Orchestra in a performance of his work The Encantadas, a musical picture of the Galapagos Islands, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts. The concert, "To the Sea," will include a performance by mezzo-soprano Kyle Engler of Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures, Op. 37, a series of poems about the sea and sailing. The Encantadas is based on a collection of 10 essays of the same name by Herman Melville describing his visit to the Galapagos to research the novel Moby Dick, said Tedd Griepentrog, the orchestra's executive director.

In the first concert of its 25th anniversary season, the Columbia Orchestra killed a snake, ambled through the eastern European countryside on a tour arranged by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak and welcomed a distinguished hometown soloist to Jim Rouse Theatre. Conductor Jason Love began this milestone season Saturday with Silvestre Revueltas' "Sensemaya," a rhythmically complex, seven-minute work inspired by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen's poem about the ritualized killing of a snake.

The Columbia Orchestra. Auditions for string instruments (inquire about winds and percussion), 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Aug. 17 and 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Aug. 19 at the Vantage House in Columbia. Call 410-480-0177 or e-mail AnneSWard@aol.com. New Wave Singers. Auditions for fall 2002, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Aug. 21 and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 24 at Govans Presbyterian Church, 5828 York Road. All voice ranges and skill levels are encouraged to audition. Call 410-558-4692 or visit www.newwavesingers.org.

Think of an orchestra and it's not likely that a guitar will come to mind. But music aficionados are in for a rare treat this weekend, when the Columbia Orchestra teams up with award-winning guitarist Paul Moeller for a guitar concerto as part of the orchestra's final classical concert of the season, "Contemporary Classics." The concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez by the late Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo, is one of three 20th-century compositions the orchestra will present Saturday evening at the Jim Rouse Theatre at Wilde Lake High School.