Orcas Center will present the Academy Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. The concert will feature solo performances by gifted, award-winning young musicians, including Orcas Island’s Oliver Aldort (cello) and Marié Rossano (violin) from Seattle.

The Academy Chamber Orchestra is the Northwest’s foremost youth chamber orchestra. A division of the Academy of Music Northwest, ACO performs in venues throughout Seattle, including Benaroya Hall’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall. The players range in age from 12-22 and are accepted to the orchestra by audition. Alan Futterman, music director of ACO and the Bremerton Symphony, has served on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music and Central Washington University. Futterman holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School of Music with two years of Doctoral studies.

Aldort is a winner of the Music Teachers National Association’s competition, the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival and other competitions in the USA and Canada. Aldort who gave his debut recital at age seven on the Orcas Center stage, has performed as soloist with orchestras on both coasts since the age of 10. Principal cellist of the orchestra, Oliver will solo in Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, arranged for ACO by his brother Lennon. The Symphony #3 by Lennon, principal second violinist with the orchestra, will also be performed, under the baton of Oliver.

Rossano was one of nine young artists selected from around the world to participate and perform in the Juilliard School’s 2009 Starling-DeLay Symposium. She is also a winner of MTNA and SYAMF competitions and has a long list of solo appearances with major symphony orchestras. She will play the first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto.

This musical celebration performed by young musicians will also include Haydn, Mozart and Bizet, arranged for the orchestra by Simon Berry and the orchestra’s director, Futterman.

Tickets are $25, $17 for Orcas Center members and $11 for students. Tickets may be purchased online at www.orcascenter.org or during regular box office hours: Thursday to Saturday, noon to 4 p.m., 376-2281 ext.1. Contact the box office for information about the Orcas Center free and discounted ticket fund.