"Kaleidoscope" is the next Peoria Symphony offering

It is being billed as a concert with "Italian drama, French charm, German genius and Kyle — a fabulous Peoria Symphony Orchestra evening."

The next PSO concert, titled Kaleidoscope, will be presented Saturday, March 2 at 8 p.m. in the Peoria Civic Center Theatre. The featured performer will be the symphony's own top flutist Kyle Dzapo, headlining the Ibert masterpiece "Flute Concerto," which the symphony said evokes romantic, jazzy 1930s Paris.

Other featured music will include Rossini's "Barber of Seville Overture", Ravel's "Le tombeau de Couperin" and Mozart's "Symphony No. 38, Prague."

Said the PSO, "Rossini's sweet lyricism and heroic energy is a study in delightful contrasts. Ibert's masterpiece evokes romantic, jazzy 1930s Paris — so perfect for the PSO's own Kyle Dzapo. Next, more images of Paris — an earlier century — as Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin evokes the Baroque era through an impressionist prism. Finally, Mozart's Prague Symphony takes us to old Bohemia, where the Czech press once noted, "Nowhere is [Mozart's] music better understood than in Bohemia, even in the countryside."

Tickets are $26 to $51 for adults and $11 for students. They can be purchased by calling (309) 671-1096, online at www.peoriasymphony.org  or at the PSO box office, 101 State Street in Peoria. Box office hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Friday and noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Tickets will be available at the Civic Center box office at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Dzapo, a professor of music at Bradley University, said most flutists would agree "that Ibert's concerto is the best ever written for the flute. Every flutist wants to play it, and I'm thrilled to be performing it with the PSO."

"Ibert was a true original, and in his work he combines elements of a classical concerto with the unique harmonic language and brilliant orchestration of a genius. The flute concerto is Ibert's most enduring work. The first movement begins unlike any other concerto: a quirky gesture by the orchestra quickly gives way to a brilliant flourish of fast notes by the flutist. It's jaunty but with the elegant touches of a Frenchman," she said.

"This was composed just after the death of Ibert's father and the second movement is a reverie; maybe an elegy. Its middle section features a lovely violin solo accompanied by sinuous arabesques in the solo flute. The finale is rambunctious, virtuosic, full of energy," she added.

Dzapo, is a frequent participant in PSO-sponsored chamber music programs and has performed as soloist with the orchestra in works by Bach, Mozart, Nielsen, Martin, and Ciardi. In addition to these engagements, she has presented solo recitals at Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium, at the Royal Opera House in Aarhus, Denmark, and on live broadcasts for WFMT's Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series and Wisconsin Public Radio's "Sunday Afternoon Live."

According to her biography, Dzapo is the world's leading authority on Danish flutist and composer Joachim Andersen.

Dzapo teaches flute and music history, her work having been recognized with awards for both teaching (Caterpillar Inc. Faculty Teaching Award) and scholarship (Samuel Rothberg Award). In 2010, the University honored her with its highest distinction, the Caterpillar Professorship. She is a pre-concert lecturer for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and is currently under contract with Oxford University Press to write Notes For Flutists: A Guide to Selected Works, the flagship book in Oxford's "Notes for Performers" series for which she serves as Series Editor.

At 7 p.m. Saturday, Dr. Stephen Heinemann will present the pre-concert lecture.

Heinemann teaches second-year and upper-division music theory courses at Bradley University and private lessons in composition and clarinet, and is music director of the new-music ensemble Peoria Lunaire. In 2009, he received the Slane College Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching.

He is a member of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra with which he plays clarinet and E-flat clarinet. An ardent jazz musician, he plays alto and soprano saxophones with the Todd Kelly Quintet, for which he has composed a number of pieces, and is lead alto saxophonist with the Central Illinois Jazz Orchestra. He has performed at the jazz festivals of Vienne (France), Montreux and Brienz (Switzerland), and Umbria and Tuscany (Italy).

Dr. Heinemann's compositions have been performed in North America and Europe; a notable recent premiere was in Minneapolis in November 2009 of Metropassacaglia, composed for the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, William Schrickel. Metropassacaglia received its Illinois premiere on Jan. 14, 2012 by the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.