Westborough-The 13th annual concert of the Vivaldi Cello Festival Orchestra will be Saturday, May 25, in the Sarah W. Gibbons Middle School auditorium, 20 Fisher St., at 7 p.m.
The purpose of the event is to give local young musicians an opportunity to perform solos with a professional orchestra in a formal concert setting. Boston musicians who come together each year as the Vivaldi Festival Orchestra accompany the featured soloists. Works by Vivaldi, Camille Saint-Saens, Haydn, Tchaikovsky and Eduardo Lalo will be performed. The conductor is Paul Dulude, director of the Boston Virtuosi.
Parents and local businesses and organizations sponsor the performance. The concert is free and donations are encouraged.
Eight of the cellists are students of Maryan McClelland Pietropaolo, who taught at the University of Lowell and Phillips Exeter Academy. She moved to Westborough in 1999 with her husband, Joe Pietropaolo, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's viola section for 39 years. Two of the cellists are students of Cynthia Forbes, a longtime cello Continuo for the Vivaldi Festival Orchestra. Cynthia teaches at Indian Hill Music Center of Littleton, Boston Latin School, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and maintains a private studio.