“A Night at the Movies” will be presented Southern Ozarks Community Orchestra (SOCO) at 7 p.m. this Friday and Saturday (July 8-9) at the Melba Performing Arts Center in Houston
Tickets will be available at the door and are $10. Children under 12 are free.
The evening will feature musical selections from many movies along with video clips. Included are movie favorites “Forrest Gump,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Titanic,” “James Bond,” “Avengers,” “Gladiator,” “Superman Returns” and others.
This concert will be a fundraiser for the orchestra and donations will help it to continue to present live concerts.
Conductors for the performances will be Jodie Forbes of the SOCO and Rebecca Peterson, director of the STARS Foundation. The full 38-member orchestra consists of musicians from both organizations.
The SOCO has been a part of the community for over 12 years and is sponsored by the Willow Springs Arts Council. The members are volunteers from West Plains, Mountain View, Licking, Houston, Willow Springs and Mountain Home, Ark.
The orchestra is made up of musicians of all ages and includes several local area music educators. Forbes has been a member of SOCO for many years, performing as a flute and piccolo player. She is a retired elementary music teacher who taught in public schools for over 30 years before retiring at Houston.
The STARS Foundation is a fine arts school in Cabool founded by Peterson in 2010. Its mission is “to expose the area’s youth and adults to fine arts while serving the community” and is a full fine arts immersion program of art, theater, languages, dance and music for all ages children and adult.”
Peterson has also been a public-school music teacher and is passionate about music and the arts.