Tickets on sale for Shepherd School’s first tour

Tickets are on sale for the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra’s first tour, which will feature debut performances at Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Feb. 15 and New York’s Carnegie Hall Feb. 18.

Larry Rachleff, the Shepherd School’s director of orchestras and the Walter Kris Hubert Professor of Music, will conduct the orchestra. Both programs will feature Berlioz’s “Le corsaire, Op. 21” and Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” In addition, the Baltimore program will feature Jon Kimura Parker, professor of piano, in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43,” and the New York performance will feature Cho-Liang Lin, professor of violin, in Christopher Rouse’s “Violin Concerto.”

Founded in 1975, the Shepherd School is one of the nation’s youngest major university-level music programs. In its short history, the school has built one of the nation’s pre-eminent orchestral programs under the artistic direction of Rachleff. As the school approaches its 40th anniversary, its programs in opera, chamber music, keyboard studies, com­position, theory and musicology have risen to comparable levels of excellence. Having amassed a premier group of artist-teachers, the school attracts the nation’s most promising young musicians in training.

Prior to departing for its New York and Baltimore engagements, the orchestra will present both tour programs at the Shepherd School Feb. 8 and 13.

Tickets are available for purchase through the Meyerhoff Hall and Carnegie Hall box offices. Visit http://music.rice.edu/tour2014/ for details.