Competition down to wire for SASO baton

The orchestra's search committee winnowed that list down to four finalists, who have been invited to try out, Tim Secomb, committee co-chairman, said in a written release. The four will be charged with conducting a concert during the orchestra's 2007-08 season.

At the end of the season, one of the candidates will be tapped to take over for Boyles, who left this summer to head up orchestras at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The SASO position pays $12,500 a year.

Boyles programmed this season's concerts, including the season finale next June, which he will conduct. In that concert, the orchestra will premiere a commissioned piece.

A California conductor, Brian Asher Alhadeff, a recent doctoral grad of the University of California-Los Angeles, will lead the orchestra in its season opening Sunday. (The orchestra officially started its season with a performance last Sunday at SaddleBrooke.)

For the past four years, Alhadeff has served as associate conductor of the Beverly Hills Symphony. His résumé also includes turns with the Grand Rapids State University in Michigan and serving as music director of the Hradec Kralove International Summer Opera Festival in the Czech Republic. He also took the baton with the Eastern Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra and has conducting experience in opera and ballet.

Other candidates:

● Thomas Elefant, a Santiago, Chile, native, who was a string and brass player before turning to conducting, earned his doctorate in conducting and viola at Michigan State University. He went on to serve as music director/conductor with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Indiana from 1985 to 1997. He moved to Israel, where he conducted the Camerata Chamber Orchestra in that country and on tour in Europe. In 2000 he founded the Inter-Generational Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv, which he led for six years before returning to the United States this year.

Elefant will conduct SASO's second concert on Nov. 11 at SaddleBrooke and Nov. 18 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Tucson.

● Matthew Fritz, a Scottsdale resident, earned his bachelor's in violin performance from Arizona State University and his master's degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he was assistant conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra. Also while at Eastman, he founded and led Neo, a student-run outreach orchestra that offered free, family-friendly concerts designed to grow new audiences for classical music. He will conduct SASO's third concert on Feb. 10, 2008, at SaddleBrooke and Feb. 17 at St. Andrew's.

● Linus Lerner, a Brazil native, is perhaps best known to Tucson audiences as the artistic and executive director of the Reveille Men's Choir, which he has helmed for the past four years. He is completing his doctorate in orchestral conducting at the University of Arizona, where he served for three years as co-director of the UA Philharmonic Orchestra and assistant conductor of the UA Symphony and Opera Orchestras. He also is music director/conductor at the Church of the Painted Hills Choir.

Lerner is an accomplished opera singer whose résumé includes his work with Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Youth Orchestra, the Camarata Consort of Guitars and several choirs. He will conduct SASO's fourth concert on March 30 at SaddleBrooke and April 6 at St. Andrew's.

The candidates will work with the orchestra's resident conductor, Martin Majkut, a UA doctoral student and 2003 Fulbright scholar. Majkut, a classical tenor, sings with Tucson Chamber Artists.

PREVIEW

•Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra.

• When: 3 p.m. Sunday.

• Where: St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte, Northwest Side.

• Cost: $15, with discounts available, 323-7166.

• Program:

Jules Massenet's Suite No. 4 "Scenes pittoresques."

Gordon Jacob's Bassoon Concerto, featuring soloist Jessica Campbell.

César Franck's Symphony in D minor.