Princeton, New Jersey - - The remarkably talented musicians of the Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra, under the accomplished baton of Maestro Fernando Raucci, can be heard in their Third Annual Italian American Cultural Exchange Concert, sponsored by the Princeton-Pettoranello Sister City Foundation, to be performed on Saturday, May 15th at 8 P.M. at Princeton University's prestigious Richardson Auditorium.

The orchestra will be performing a program of Italian and American composers to promote the exchange of art and culture between America and Italy. Respighi's Pini di Roma, contrasted against the world premier of Tim Keyes' COLORADO, will be performed. The program will emphasize the link between these two countries by musical expressions of Rome and Colorado's grand and dazzling landscapes.

GPYO is proud and privileged to have been selected to perform the world premier of COLORADO, written by the brilliantly gifted local composer Tim Keyes. Inspired by the spectacular scenery of the American West, COLORADO, a concerto for violin and orchestra, is composer Tim Keyes' newest work. This majestic violin concerto in five movements, journeys the listener from the vast Great Plain to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, through Aspen groves to a pristine mountain lake. The work concludes as the listener is brought to the summit of the Continental Divide.

COLORADO was composed by Keyes for GPYO's ConcertMistress, Hope Cannon, a senior at Montgomery High School in Skillman. Cannon will perform the violin solo for COLORADO at this concert.

Keyes has also written a five-stanza poem to accompany COLORADO. A professional actor from the Princeton Repertory Shakespeare Festival will read each stanza before each of the five movements of this extraordinary concerto.

In addition, The GPYO Chamber Orchestra will be accompanying this year's GPYO concerto competition winner, cellist Joseph Prencipe, in Haydn's Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in D Major. Prencipe, a junior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, selected this piece for its lively baroque style as well as its unique illustration of the cello's most beautiful sound.

Also, Verdi's Overture to Giovanna d'Arco will be performed jointly by the GPYO Chamber Orchestra and GPYO's Camarata Chamber Orchestra. GPYO's Camarata Orchestra is under the direction of its extraordinarily talented Music Director and Conductor, Nathan Thomas.

Tickets to this performance can be obtained by calling the Richardson Box Office at 609-258-5000 or can be purchased at the door. General Admission tickets are $15 - Senior and Student tickets are $10. For more information on and photographs of GPYO, please visit GPYO Website. For more information on and photographs of composer Tim Keyes and soloist Hope Cannon, please visit TimKeys.Com.