Guests artists fill stage for SASO concert, including conductor, British violinist

To say that Mendelssohn and Brahms are in conductor Peter Leonard’s wheel house is an understatement.

The American-born conductor has spent a big part of his career leading German orchestras in German repertoire, which will surely serve Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra well this weekend when Leonard gets behind the podium to lead the volunteer ensemble in a program of Mendelssohn and Brahms.

He will be joined by guest soloists Theodore Buchholz on cello and Madeleine Mitchell on violin in two concerts: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2, at DesertView Performing Arts Center, 39900 Clubhouse Drive in SaddleBrooke; and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 3, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte in Oro Valley.

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Buchholz, who teaches cello at the University of Arizona and regularly performs in Tucson, and Mitchell, a British violinist with a globe-trotting solo career, will team up on Brahm’s Concerto for Violin and Violoncello.

The work is sandwiched between Mendelssohn’s “The Hebrides” (“Fingal’s Cave”) and the composer’s “Reformation” Symphony No. 5 in D major.

Tickets for SaddleBrooke are $24 through tickets.saddlebrooketwo.com; they are $23 for Oro Valley through sasomusic.org.