The Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of its Principal Conductor, David Leibowitz, continues to celebrate its 25th season of free concerts with pianist Orion Weiss performing the Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat-Major on Saturday evening, May 3, 8:30 p.m., at the Berner Middle School, Carmans Mill Road, Massapequa. The orchestral selections are Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila and Brahms' Symphony No. 3 in F-Major.

Orion Weiss, now 25 years old and a native of Lyndhurst, OH, started piano at age 3 with the Suzuki Method. In 1999, with less than 24 hours notice, he replaced Andre Watts as a soloist, performing the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2, with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and also that year he made his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, playing the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. Weiss was the recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Young Artist Award and both the Gina Bachauer and Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarships at the Juilliard School where he studied with Emanuel Ax, graduating in 2004. In 2002 he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 2005, he won the Juilliard William Petschek Award and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Mr. Weiss was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2002-2004, and he was featured in both the 2004 Musical America and the March 2004 Symphony Magazine as part of the next generation of great artists in classical music. Recently, in March 2008, he performed chamber music at Metropolitan Museum of Art with Itzhak Perlman playing the violin.

The Massapequa Philharmonic is composed of about 70 local musicians and is one of the largest orchestras on Long Island. Principal Conductor David Leibowitz received his MA from CUNY's Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, where his main studies were in performance and musicology. He studied conducting with Carlo Maria Giulini and Herbert Blomstedt, and was a finalist in the International Masterplayers' Conducting Competition in Lugano, Switzerland in 1986. Mr. Leibowitz is the founder and current music director of the New York Repertory Orchestra, which is in its 16th season. Since 2002 he has been on the conducting staff of the Rome Festival, leading opera, ballet, and concert performances in Italy. Leibowitz has appeared with the Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights and Centre Symphony Orchestras.

This concert is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program, administered by the Long Island Arts Council at Freeport; the Town of Oyster Bay, Department of Community and Youth Services, John Venditto, Town Supervisor; the New York State Parks with the separate sponsorships of Senator Charles J. Fuschillo Jr., and Assemblyman Joseph S. Saladino.

For more information, please call: Robert Ackerberg, 795-4071.