If you’re one of those people who enjoy sampler platters in restaurants – an assortment of the best and most popular dishes they offer, combined onto one bountiful plate - then you will undoubtedly revel in the Sarasota Music Festival’s second week of offerings at the Sarasota Opera House.

The two rich programs, on Friday, June 16, and Saturday, June 17, both at 7:30 pm, offer an extraordinary array of music from some of history’s most adored composers – Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Copland, and Respighi – each of whom could fill a month of concerts on their own.

Together, the two Festival programs offer audiences an opportunity to enjoy a variety of styles – from the delicacy and poignancy of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring to the majesty of Brahms’ mighty Piano Quintet and the unbridled joy of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.

The Friday, June 16 program opens with Mozart’s jaunty Serenade No. 11 for wind instruments. One of the many chamber works Mozart wrote for winds, this one features oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns in pairs, and is full of perky, smile-inducing tunes and virtuoso writing for each instrument. As is the custom at the Sarasota Music Festival, the world-class faculty perform side by side with the pre-professional fellows, making this an opportunity to hear some of the world’s current and future greats on stage together.

Following the jubilance of the Mozart, faculty, and fellows will perform Aaron Copland’s tender and poignant Appalachian Spring. Originally a ballet score, the stunningly beautiful work culminates in Copland’s rendition of the beloved Shaker tune Simple Gifts. The piece is most often heard in its orchestral version, but this Festival performance offers audiences the somewhat rare opportunity to hear the original, 13-instrument version, led by Festival Music Director Jeffrey Kahane. Evoking the breathtaking beauty of the Appalachian hills, the ballet tells the story of a young pioneer couple as they marry and begin their lives together.  The work won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize in music and has become one of the most popular works by the man frequently cited as America’s greatest classical composer.

The program concludes with one of the crown jewels of the chamber music repertoire, Brahms’ magnificent Piano Quintet in F Minor. Composed for a piano and string quartet, this performance will feature Jeffrey Kahane at the keyboard, alongside Festival guest artists the Attacca Quartet. The Attacca Quartet are young, energetic, Grammy-winning artists, and their performance with Kahane will be electric.

Saturday, June 17 offers a concert featuring the Festival Orchestra, as guest conductor Kazem Abdullah leads a program that opens with Respighi’s arresting Trittico Botticelliano. Based upon a triptych of paintings by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, Respighi’s three-movement work is a gorgeous homage to the 16th-century paintings, full of references to ancient melodies and evoking an air of mysticism.

Desmond Hoebig, former Principal Cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra, is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s beloved Variations on a Rococo Theme. One of Tchaikovsky’s most popular works, the piece offers the cellist the opportunity to show off not only their technical prowess but their musical sensitivity, as the variations move from tender to virtuosic.

The Saturday concert concludes with the revelry of Mozart’s 41^st and final symphony, popularly known as the Jupiter Symphony. This will be the opportunity for the fellows of the orchestra to take center stage, and the energy should be remarkable. The Festival Orchestra is comprised of some of the most gifted pre-professional musicians in the country, and Mozart’s jubilant symphony never fails to bring an audience to its feet in an explosive ovation. Together, they should provide concertgoers with a high-octane conclusion to a musical smorgasbord to remember!

To learn more and purchase tickets for the Sarasota Music Festival, visit the Box Office at the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center, call (941) 953-3434, or visit SarasotaOrchestra.org/Festival. Program and featured artists subject to change.