CSO's FATHER & SON Program to Feature Guest Conductor James Sommerville, 11/1-3

James Sommerville, principal horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, combines his solo and conducting skills for this immensely enjoyable program featuring a pair of attractive concertos by the Mozarts-father Leopold's Horn Concerto in D and son Wolfgang Amadeus' Horn Concerto No. 3. Rounding out the bill are Haydn's enchanting "Surprise" symphony, and operatic master Rossini's most familiar work, the merry overture to his comic masterpiece, The Barber of Seville.

The Columbus Symphony presents Father & Son at the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main St.) on Friday, November 1, at 8pm; Saturday, November 2, at 8pm; Sunday, November 3, at 3pm. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, andwww.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000. The CAPA Ticket Center will also be open two hours prior to each performance. Young people between the ages of 13-25 may purchase $5 PNC Arts Alive All Access tickets while available. For more information, visit www.GoFor5.com.

The 2013-14 Masterworks Series is made possible through the generous support of season sponsors Anne and Noel Melvin.

About guest conductor James Sommerville: James Sommerville is Principal Horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. The winner of the highest prizes at the Munich, Toulon, and CBC competitions, he has pursued a solo career spanning 25 years and has brought critically acclaimed appearances with major orchestras throughout North America and Europe. His disc of the Mozart Horn Concertos with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra won the JUNO Award for Best Classical Recording in Canada. Other award-winning CBC recordings include Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings and Canticle. Sommerville has recorded chamber music for the Deutsche Gramophon, Telarc, CBC, Summit, and Marquis labels. He is also a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, with whom he tours and records regularly.

About composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868): Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, and the French-language epics Moïse et Pharaon and Guillaume Tell. A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart." Until his retirement in 1829, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history. The Barber of Seville premiered on February 20, 1816, at the Teatro Argentina, Rome. The first performance was a disastrous failure with audience hissing and jeering throughout. Likely fueled by rival composer Giovanni Paisiello, the second performance was a rousing success.

About composer Valentin Silvestrov (born September 30, 1937): Silvestrov is a Ukrainian pianist and composer of contemporary classical music perhaps best known for his post-modern musical style; some, if not most, of his works could be considered neoclassical and post-modernist. Using traditional tonal and modal techniques, Silvestrov creates a unique and delicate tapestry of dramatic and emotional textures, qualities which he suggests are otherwise sacrificed in much of contemporary music.

About composer Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (1719-1787): Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist best known as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. Leopold Mozart's music is inevitably overshadowed by the work of his son Wolfgang, and in any case the father willingly sacrificed his own career to promote his son's, but his Cassation in G for Orchestra and Toys (Toy Symphony) remains popular, and a number of symphonies, a trumpet concerto, and other works also survive.

About composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Wolfgang Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era, composing from the age of five and performing before European royalty. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. Mozart composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. His Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major was completed between 1784 and 1787 during the Vienna Period, and was written as a friendly gesture for the hornist Joseph Leutgeb (his name is mentioned few times in the score). The autograph score remained well preserved; it is stored in the British Library in London.

About composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Austrian composer Haydn was one of the most prolific and prominent of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms. He was also instrumental in the development of the piano trio and in the evolution of sonata form. At the time of his death, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe. The Symphony No. 94 in G major is the second of his twelve so-called London symphonies (numbers 93-104), usually referred to by its nickname, the Surprise Symphony. Haydn's music contains many jokes, and the Surprise Symphony includes probably the most famous of all-a sudden fortissimo chord at the end of an otherwise piano opening theme in the variation-form second movement. The music then returns to its original quiet dynamic, as if nothing had happened, and the ensuing variations do not repeat the joke.

The Columbus Symphony presents FATHER & SON on Friday & Saturday, November 1 & 2, 8pm and Sunday, November 3, 3pm at the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main St.). Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000, or visit www.columbussymphony.com for more information.

Founded in 1951, the Columbus Symphony is the longest-running, professional symphony in central Ohio. Through an array of innovative artistic, educational, and community outreach programming, the Columbus Symphony is reaching an expanding, more diverse audience each year. This season, the Columbus Symphony will share classical music with more than 175,000 people in central Ohio through concerts, radio broadcasts, and special programming.

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