Families looking for a fun, indoor event may want to consider attending the upcoming free Nittany Valley Symphony (NVS) concert featuring a musical program suited for young audiences.
The concert, Carnival of the Animals, will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, at the State College Area High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets are free to the public thanks to the generosity of The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau and Centre Foundation, and can be reserved at https://www.nvs.org/upcoming-events/carnivaloftheanimals online.
Carnival of the Animals is designed especially for children and youth. This lively, one-hour presentation celebrates collaboration, education, and musical imagination, offering an engaging and accessible introduction to orchestral music for listeners of all ages while showcasing exceptional young talent.
The program features a side-by-side collaboration with the State College Area High School Advanced Strings; violin soloist Evan Zhang, winner of this year’s Ann Keller Young Soloist competition; and piano soloists Amy Gustafson and Erin Chen. The concert will last roughly an hour, with no intermission.
Zhang was the winner of the NVS annual Ann Keller Young Soloist Competition held on Nov. 23, 2025. The competition, named for NVS founder and concertmaster Ann Keller, provides young soloists an opportunity to compete for a chance to perform live with the Nittany Valley Symphony. Zhang is a junior at State College Area High School, and a violin student of Penn State professor James Lyon. As part of his first-place award, Zhang will appear as a soloist with the orchestra performing the dramatic, restless, and virtuosic first movement from Camille Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3.
Zhang has participated in many orchestral groups including the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, Temple Music Prep’s Youth Chamber Orchestra, the PMEA All-State Orchestra and the Honors Performance Series, as well as the Nittany Valley Symphony.
To start the concert, nearly 40 high school musicians will join the Nittany Valley Symphony on stage, sitting alongside orchestra members and performing as part of a full symphony orchestra. For this collaboration, students and symphony members will perform two pieces by Aaron Copland: An Outdoor Overture and Down a Country Lane.
Copland wrote both of these works to highlight the talents of young musicians in America. An Outdoor Overture was commissioned in 1938 by Alexander Richter for the High School of Music and Art in New York City. Copland was asked to write a piece that would challenge advanced student players while remaining direct, energetic, and accessible. Down a Country Lane was originally written as a piano piece and later orchestrated by the composer. Life magazine commissioned this work in 1962 and wrote that it was “among the few modern pieces specially written for young piano students by a major composer.”
Both works reflect Copland’s clear, open sound world and his deep connection to the American landscape. These pieces also serve as a preview of our larger celebration of American music later this season, with a program dedicated to American composers on March 19 at Eisenhower Auditorium as part of the United States’ 250th anniversary year.
The concert concludes with one of the most beloved works in the orchestral repertoire: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. Featuring piano soloists Amy Gustafson and Erin Chen, this witty and imaginative piece takes listeners on a musical trip to the zoo, with each movement portraying a different animal. Full of humor, character, and memorable tunes, Carnival of the Animals is a favorite for audiences of all ages.