The Missouri University of Science and Technology University and Community Symphony Orchestra and the Missouri S&T Chamber Orchestra will perform their winter holiday concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, in Leach Theater of Castleman Hall, 10th and Main streets in Rolla. The orchestra will be conducted by Dr. Robert J. Cesario, assistant professor of arts, languages and philosophy.

Tickets are $5 for the public and free for S&T students and youth age 18 and younger. They can be purchased at the door the night of the performance.

The Chamber Orchestra will begin the concert with Alexander Borodin’s Peasant Song, and Robert Schumann’s Fugue in D Minor, arranged for strings by Ralph Matesky. They will conclude their part of the program with Robert Bauernschmidt’s A Christmas Carol Suite, which includes several familiar holiday tunes.

“The Symphony Orchestra will start with Leroy Anderson’s classic Sleigh Ride, then play Johannes Brahm’s stirring Academic Festival Overture,” says Cesario. “Next the symphony will present the hauntingly beautiful, Prayer of St. Gregory, by Alan Hovhaness, which will feature Rachel Gray on trumpet, accompanied by the orchestra’s strings. Rachel is the band director for the Crocker Public Schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music from Missouri State and a master of music degree in trumpet performance form Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.”

The concert will conclude with a new publication of Leroy Anderson’s full length arrangement of Christmas songs done for the Boston Pops, A Christmas Festival.

The orchestras will give two additional concerts in the spring, at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 11, 2012, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 29, 2012.

For more information, contact Cesario at cesarior@mst.edu, or call the Missouri S&T performing arts office at 573-341-4185.