Dvorak C arol Smith will warm up the Sam Houston State University Symphony Orchestra Thursday evening and turn it over to graduate conductor Melissa Scott for pieces by Ralph Vaughn Williams, George Frideric Handel, Antonin Dvorak and Camille Saint-Saens.
Admission is free.
One of three preludes on Welsh hymn tunes for organ, it was orchestrated by one of Vaughn Williams' students, Arnold Foster, and is said to be simple and modest and the most popular of the three. Born to a family of butchers in Czechoslovakia, Dvorak came to the United States for only three years, but left behind a symphony that he believed, and many agree, captured the spirit of America.