The DePaul Symphony Orchestra will present its 24th annual Joseph and Marie Grant Spring Concert in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., May 9 at 8 p.m. The rousing "Festive Overture" by Shostakovich, the haunting "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" by Penderecki, the gentle "Mother Goose Suite" of fairy tale music by Ravel and the powerful "Symphony No. 1" by Brahms will be performed.

     The concert is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets are available after April 10 from the Orchestra Hall Box Office: 312/294-3000.

     The orchestra, led by distinguished Chicago conductor, composer and arranger Cliff Colnot, consists of 90 talented musicians enrolled in the DePaul School of Music performance program. Students in the program study with faculty members and guest artists from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera Chicago orchestra and other professional performing ensembles. Several DePaul Symphony members also perform with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

     "I've had the opportunity to play in a lot of the great halls, but Orchestra Hall is awesome," said Daryl Johnson, a DePaul Symphony tuba player and Lincoln Park neighborhood resident. Johnson has played in famed symphony halls in New York, San Francisco and Miami and recently competed in the International Tuba Solo Competition in Australia.

     Performing in Chicago's Orchestra Hall has a "mystic" reputation among tuba players, Johnson said, because the late Arnold Jacobs, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's legendary lead tuba player, performed there. Jacobs died two years ago. "One of the reasons I came to Chicago was to study with Arnold Jacobs and with Floyd Cooley at DePaul," said Johnson, who took private lessons with Jacobs and studied at DePaul's School of Music with Cooley, the principal tuba player for the San Francisco Symphony. "It's an honor to play in Orchestra Hall and one of the highlights of the year."

     Each year the DePaul Symphony presents four public concerts at the DePaul Concert Hall on the Lincoln Park Campus and a spring concert at Symphony Center. The Joseph and Marie Grant Spring Concert has been supported annually since 1976 by the Grants. Joseph Grant, a 1932 DePaul Law School alumnus, is a School of Music advisory board member.