Shepherd School Symphony and Chamber Orchestras present 2014-15 season debut concerts

The Shepherd School of Music’s acclaimed Chamber and Symphony orchestras will perform the first concerts of the academic year at 8 p.m. Sept. 27 and at Oct. 2 and 4, respectively. The performances will take place in Alice Pratt Brown Hall’s Stude Concert Hall. Larry Rachleff, director of orchestras and the Walter Kris Hubert Professor of Music, will conduct the performances.

The Chamber Orchestra’s program will include Rossini’s “Semiramide Overture;” Mendelssohn’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25,” featuring student soloist Hui Shan Chin and conductor Jerry Hou; and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93.”

The Symphony Orchestra’s program will feature a performance of Barber’s “Overture to the School for Scandal”; Webern’s “Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6”; and Prokofiev’s “Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, Op. 100.”

“It’s so exciting to start the new season with our wonderful students again,” Rachleff said. “Both programs are full of orchestral color, electricity and depth, and promise to be full of the great skill and talent we’ve come to know from our students As one of our Carnegie Hall concertgoers noted last spring, ‘They look like students, but they sure don’t sound like them!'”

The Chamber Orchestra concert is free and seating is first-come, first-served (no tickets required). Admission (reserved seating) for the Symphony Orchestra concerts is free for students and Rice ID holders, $12 for the general public and $10 for senior citizens. For tickets, call 713-348-8000.

For more information, visit http://music.rice.edu/.