MSO is a family affair

How to go

What: Middletown Symphony Orchestra

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Dave Finkelman Auditorium, Miami University Middletown, 4200 E. University Blvd.

Cost: $25 for adults, $20 for students. Call (513) 424-2426 or visit www.middletownsymphony.com

MIDDLETOWN — The Middletown Symphony Orchestra stays all in the family Saturday, March 6, for its third concert of the season.

Two years ago, Coleman Itzkoff appeared as a cellist with the local symphony at the age of 15. The Cincinnati Walnut Hills High School senior returns to Middletown, bringing with him his father, violinist Gerald Itzkoff, who plays violin with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Like his father, Coleman has played with numerous orchestras.

Coleman “made such an impression on everybody, I started looking for a way to bring him back,” said Carmon DeLeone, the musical director of the Middletown Symphony.

Searching for musical selections, DeLeone found a Johannes Brahms concerto that was “one of the very few pieces of music designed as a double concerto for the cello and violin,” he said.

Taking up the second half of the concert, the concerto is “a big piece of music ... that’s really a tour de force. It’s a great piece that doesn’t get performed that often,” DeLeone said.

The first half of the show opens with what DeLeone called “a bright, wonderful overture” by Samuel Barber to “The School for Scandal.” Barber is probably best known for a mournful piece of music called “Adagio for Strings,” which has been used in numerous films, including “Platoon” and “The Elephant Man.” This year also marks Barber’s 100th birthday, DeLeone said.

Closing out the first half of the concert is Ludwig van Beethoven’s second symphony, which is “not that often performed,” DeLeone said. Beethoven bridged the classical and romantic musical periods, and this being an earlier work of the composer’s, it is more classically based, the conductor said.

The Middletown Symphony wraps up its current season with a May 15 concert featuring piano soloist Tomoko Kanamuru.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.