(Chronicle photo by Tricia Fulks) The Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, founded by Shepherd University Friends of Music, rehearses for its March 12 performance on Tuesday. Conductor Mark McCoy, standing center, quips that this year’s performance is ‘not your grandfather’s orchestra.’

By Tricia Fulks / Chronicle Editor

After a break, just slightly after a quarter after 7 p.m. on Tuesday evening, Mark McCoy, chair of Shepherd University’s Department of Music, waited as the musicians tuned their instruments before they launched into an upbeat piece by an Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzola.

Along the way, McCoy offered guidance to the players. He listened as musicians offered their own feedback. Together, the orchestra rehearsed as onlookers milled in and out of the Frank Arts Center theatre.

Conductor McCoy was prepping the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra (2RCO) for its performance this Saturday night.

In its fourth year, the 2RCO, founded by the Shepherd’s Friends of Music in 2007, will bring something a bit different to the stage tomorrow night.

The orchestra is one of West Virginia’s three professional orchestras and is made up of music professionals in the greater Washington area as well as Shepherd professors and even some students.

“This concert is a mix of music. It has one of the world’s most loved concertos — the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. But on either end of it, it has two pieces of South American Music,” McCoy said. “We’ve been jokingly referring to this as ‘Not Your Grandfather’s Orchestra’.”

McCoy said this music is “radically different” than what people are used to hearing when attending concerts.

Carrie Holter, a Shepherd freshman who is playing violin with 2RCO, thinks the music, atypical of an orchestra, is refreshing.

“I really like it,” she said. “It’s a nice change to play something that’s not the typical Beethoven, Bach, Mozart thing. I really like the Piazzola piece.”

That Piazzola piece is called “The 4 Seasons of Buenos Aires,” the closer of the night.

“This is also a very hip South American piece,” McCoy said, noting its origins go back to the tango. “And the music is very indicative of that style — that season in that part of the country.”

Jorge Alvarez, a junior cello player from Shepherd is also participating in the orchestra. Originally from Venezuela, he said the music 2RCO will play Saturday reminds him of what he plays when he performs abroad with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra from back home.

But, being able to play alongside professionals motivates him in a way the youth orchestra never has.

“I do have to practice because I’m playing with professional musicians and I have to be in tune,” Alvarez said.

Saturday’s performance will begin at 8 p.m. at the Frank Arts Center at Shepherd University. For ticket and concert information call 304-876-5765 or visit www.sufom.org.

“It’s a very exciting, very unusually programmed concert coming up,” McCoy said. “The stuff that (the musicians) are learning to play for the Two Rivers, they’re going to play this one time and maybe never again.”