LUCO concert: March 9th, 7:30pm

• Brahms, Symphony No. 2

Orchestra musicians love Brahms! He wrote such lush, sensual sonorities. He does a lot of playful things with rhythm in this symphony, which has been keeping me on my toes, and the last movement is a really fun ride.

• Broughton, Tuba Concerto - Ryan Schultz, soloist

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you have never seen anyone perform a tuba concerto before. I certainly haven't, although Ryan performed in our current music director's very first concert with LUCO, twenty whole years ago, and we're delighted to have him back. The tuba isn't often a featured instrument- people think that because it's big and low, it can't be agile or fast or graceful. Ryan proves them wrong. It's fun to play with a single soloist who we don't have to worry about covering up because we're all too loud- it's hard to overshadow a tuba!

The composer of this concerto wrote a lot of film scores, and it has that feel- like it's telling a story, or moving you through somewhere.

• Stravinsky, Firebird Suite

This is one of my favorite pieces of music, ever. Stravinsky is really fun to play - it's all chromatic and weird incomprehensible gestures, until it coalesces into something magnificent.