Beginnings at CMU

The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic starts a new chapter with Ronald Zollman, the CMU School of Music's newly hired director of orchestral studies. He will lead the group at 8 p.m. Sept. 16 in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. $4-$5 (free for college students).

Zollman won the job after auditioning among several others last year. His impressive background includes director of the National Orchestra of Belgium, guest conductor with BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, English National Opera and the Scottish Opera.

His inaugural program will be Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber" followed by Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 4."

His big concert this season, by the way, will be in April, when he takes the orchestra to Carnegie Hall in New York.