Japanese conductor Michiyoshi Inoue opens his stimulating and varied program with a work by an important composer from his homeland, Music for Symphony Orchestra by Yasushi Akutagawa, a two-part composition filled with deeply-felt emotion and rhythmic excitement. Prize-winning French harpist Xavier de Maistre plays the world’s most popular and beloved guitar concerto, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, in a version adapted for his instrument. Then come two works by Shostakovich, the rarely-heard Overture on Russian and Kyrgyz Folk Themes, the other one of the greatest First Symphonies ever composed, and by a student at that!