BrightonMusic Orchestra will present their annual free Homespun Concert on Sunday February 21 at 4 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 510 South 27th Avenue, Brighton. The Homespun Concert is a celebration of local creativity, with the entire program consisting of original compositions and arrangements by local composers.

This year principal conductor/substitute teacher Kat McCusker solicited contributions of original melodies from students in Brighton 27J, Adams 12, and Boulder Valley school districts. Nineteen responses were selected from children ranging from nine years to high school age. Each individual melody was then expanded and orchestrated into a short concert piece by one of several resident composers of the orchestra.

Roughly half of the program is composed by adult musicians. Kat McCusker’s “Gallagher’s Gait” is a playful depiction of a baby tiger frolicking, then taking a nap, from which he awakens with a roar to frolic again. She also wrote the lively program closer “Merry Chase” and orchestrated a G.P. Telemann horn suite.

Violinist Louis Jendras wrote a fun ragtime piece “Prairie Dog Rag”, “Fugue in G” for string orchestra, and “Ragtime” for brass ensemble. Longtime Platte Valley Hospital chaplain, Daryl Meyers, will appear in a DVD presentation of his original vocal “Could It Be”.

Local Color magazine editor, Mark Humbert, composed the hilarious spoof on the Olympics, consisting of four short movements— the pompous “Let The Games Begin”, “O Couchpotatia”, “Hail, Hail Beerguzzla”, and “Philbiny National Anthem”. Bonnie and Steve Simcox join the composer as vocalists to help convey the humor.

The Homespun Concert is accompanied by a homemade bake sale and an all comers arts and crafts show, both of which can be visited before and after the concert and during intermission. Admission at all BrightonMusic Orchestra concerts is free.