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JUNEAU - The Juneau Symphony will present Winter Concerts: Bold and Beautiful this weekend at the Juneau Douglas High School auditorium. The program will include the West Coast premiere of a new clarinet concerto by American composer Lowell Liebermann, as well as Dvorák's 8th Symphony and Vaughan Williams' The Wasps Overture. Clarinet soloist Jon Manasse from New York City will perform the Clarinet Concerto, a piece that was written specifically for him.

In the summer of 2008 the Juneau Symphony joined fourteen other orchestras in commissioning Lowell Liebermann to write a concerto for Manasse. The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the work in November 2009, and the Juneau Symphony will be the third orchestra to perform the piece. Lowell Liebermann is one of America's most frequently performed and recorded living composers. Juneau Symphony Music Director Kyle Wiley Pickett has called the Clarinet Concerto "the best piece of new music I have ever heard." Manasse is an international soloist and principal clarinetist for the American Ballet Theater Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke's.

Concerts will take place Saturday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 31 at 3 p.m. at the JDHS auditorium. Conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett will continue his popular Concert Conversation talks one hour prior to each show.

Tickets are on sale at Hearthside Books, the Juneau Arts and Culture Center, online at http://juneausymphony.org/, and at the door. Advance tickets are $20 general admission and $15 for students and seniors. Tickets are available for $2 more at the door for Saturday's performance. Admission to Sunday's matinée performance is pay-as-you-can for door tickets only.

Parking will be tough because of other events happening at JDHS during the performance time, so the Juneau Symphony is encouraging their audience to walk, carpool or use alternate transportation.

For more information, visit http://juneausymphony.org/.