The opening of the 36th season of the Ozark Festival Orchestra will take place beginning at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015, at the new Monett High School Performing Arts Center, East Cleveland Lane (between 17th Street and Bridle Lane), Monett.

Music director Todd Borgmann will lead the OPO's first complete performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Featured will be soloist Jacob Furry, a Monett High School sophomore and finalist in the OPO's Young Artist program. He will be the first to play a complete concerto as a competition winner.

The program also includes Young Artist vocalist Priscilla Schmitt from Nixa who will sing Adele's Laughing Song from Johann Strauss Jr.'s Viennese operetta Die Fledermaus ("The Bat"). The orchestra also will play another staple from Vienna, the "Light cavalry" overture by Franz Von Supp and Aaron Coplands Variantions on a Shaker Melody used in the American composers Appalachian Spring ballet.

Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and free to students high school age and younger. Tickets are available at the door.

The OFO is a community orchestra composed of players from Southwest Missouri and nearby towns, focusing primarily on classical music. Rehearsals are held weekly in Monett. The orchestra is supported by memberships, local foundations, ads in the orchestra program book and funds managed by the Monett Community Foundation.

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