PORTLAND – For its first concert of the new year, Music Director Robert Moody will lead the Portland Symphony Orchestra in a program of Gershwin and Shostakovich Tuesday, Jan. 13, at Merrill Auditorium.

The Tuesday Classical concert will open with George Gershwin’s jazz orchestral piece Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra with soloist Orion Weiss. Full of Gershwin’s distinctively American energy and self-assured orchestration, the first movement brims with melodic ideas, the second is a sultry blues and the third turns into a barrelhouse frenzy.

To close the concert, the PSO will take on Dmitri Shostakovich’s explosive condemnation of Russia’s Stalin era, Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, written by Shostakovich shortly after Stalin’s demise. It is a musical summary of that bleak and terrifying era.

Weiss is one of the most sought-after soloists and collaborators in his generation of young American musicians. He returns to Portland after his substitute performance with Moody and the PSO in November 2007.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m., following a concert conversation at 6:15 p.m. in the Rehearsal Hall. A radio broadcast of the performance is scheduled for 8 p.m. Jan. 28 on Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

Tickets range from $17 to $65 and are sold through PortTix at 842-0800 or www.porttix.com. Phone and Internet orders are subject to $5-per-ticket handling fees. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the box office at 20 Myrtle St. from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For complete season information, including artist biographies and program notes, visit www.portlandsymphony.com.