Tucson Symphony Orchestra Music Director José Luis Gomez will be at the podium on Saturday, Feb. 24, when the orchestra performs the Family Series concert “The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant.”
And don’t be surprised if sitting among the young families and young adults who will surely fill the Leo Rich Theatre for both of Saturday’s concerts — at 2 and 3:30 p.m. — will be pockets of TSO season ticketholders, the folks who are regulars to the orchestra’s “more serious” classics and masterworks concerts.
“They are pretty popular events,” TSO spokesman Terry Marshall said of the Family Series, which the orchestra introduced three years ago with Gomez conducting “Peter and the Wolf.” “They know the story and they love it and they want to come.”
“Peter and the Wolf” sold out, as did the followup, last year’s “Aladdin and Other Tales,” which featured Tucson Regional Ballet dancers. Adults comprised most of the audience for those shows, Marshall said.
Gomez, who conducted the first Family Series concert days after he was named the TSO music director in February 2016, will be joined this year by narrator Jed Dodds, an educator at Reid Park Zoo and host of KVOA’s “Zoo 4 You.” The 40-minute concert opens with the circus classic “Entrance of the Gladiators” and includes excerpts from Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” and Henry Mancini’s timeless “Baby Elephant Walk” before the orchestra performs French composer Francis Poulenc’s “The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant.”
The event also includes an instrument petting zoo hosted by the volunteer Civic Orchestra of Tucson, which teamed up with the TSO for a similar petting zoo at earlier Family Series events. Civic Orchestra musicians will show off and demonstrate their instruments from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in the plaza outside Leo Rich, 260 S. Church Ave.
Tickets for Saturday’s performances are $18 for adults and $12 for children under 18 through tucsonsymphony.org or by calling the TSO box office, 882-8585.
