PORTLAND – The University of Southern Maine School of Music will celebrate 50 years of teaching, learning and performing music with a 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert Friday, April 27, in Merrill Auditorium.

Featured will be about 300 performers and two world premieres by Maine composers.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m., Friday, April 27. Suggested donations at the door are $15 for the general public, $10 for seniors, and $5 for students. Seating is unreserved. For more information, call the box office at 780-5555.

Begun in the fall of 1956 when USM was Gorham State Teachers College, the School of Music has grown from only music education students to more than 200 undergraduates, plus 30-plus graduate students.

The program begins with the world premiere performance of a fanfare composed for the occasion by Daniel Sonenberg. “Golden Smash Hits” will be performed by the 20-member USM Wind Ensemble, directed by Peter Martin. That will be followed by Eric Whitacre’s “The Cloudburst,” performed by the 31-member USM Chamber Singers, conducted by Robert Russell. “The Cloudburst” is a ceremony, a celebration of the unleashed kinetic energy in all things. The mood throughout is reverent, meditative and centered.

The four-member Harp Ensemble, directed by Jara Goodrich, will play “Prelude” by Cesar Franck and “Rumba” by Carlos Salzedo. That will be followed by a piano duet by faculty members Laura Kargul and Anastasia Antonacos performing two “Hungarian Dances” by Johannes Brahms. An ensemble of 25 students in the Musical Theatre concentration will then perform one song from “South Pacific” and from “Urinetown.” Then brass faculty of the Portland Brass Quintet take the stage to perform “Suite No. 1 for Brass Quintet: Sea Chanteys,” a work by Jerry Bowder, one of the early members of the music faculty. Ellen Chickering will then direct 28 members of the Opera Workshop in the final scene from Charles Gounod’s “Faust.” That will be followed by the 18-member USM Jazz Ensemble, directed by Chris Oberholtzer, performing several jazz tunes by Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman.

Following intermission, the 56 members of the USM Concert Band, directed by Peter Martin, will perform the premiere of another faculty composition, “Celebration Fanfare” by USM SOM’s director, E. Scott Harris. That will be followed by Eric Whitacre’s “Ghost Train.”

Then, for the major work of the evening, the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra (swelled to 116 with guests and faculty) and the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra (90 members), both directed by Robert Lehmann, will join forces with the 96-member USM Chorale, the USM Chamber Singers, and the Choral Art Society, directed by Robert Russell, plus faculty soloists – all conducted by Robert Lehmann – in Anton Bruckner’s masterwork, “Te Deum.”