When the Middleburg Concert Series presented the second in its series of Sunday Afternoon concerts, the varied and interesting program put together by Dr. Alan Saucedo, consisted of vocal chamber music including vocal solos arranged for voice, strings and piano.

The almost full house was treated to a wide variety of music that included well known art songs, opera arias, American folk songs (Copland), as well as a group of lyric Japanese art songs expressively sung by Miho Sato, a native of that country.

In addition to the mostly vocal program, Dr. Alan Saucedo, cellist, performed a lyric Mendelssohn "Song Without Words," with a beautiful tone and graceful romantic expressiveness. Cynthia Saucedo, Alan's sister and violinist, expressively interpreted the well-known Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni's opera, "Cavalleria Rusticana."

Michael Forest, professor of voice at Shenandoah University, and a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera for over twenty years, opened and closed the program with the commanding professionalism for which he is well known.

Soprano Karen Chase's rendition of Copland's settings of American folk tunes was performed with appropriate enthusiasm.

Larry Correll, pianist, ably supported all instrumentalists and singers.

Concert goers in the region have much to look forward to, when the series resumes in the fall. Interesting programming with excelling performers are already being planned. The final piece of the afternoon, "This Little Light of Mine" sung by Michael Forest, brought the audience to their feet. The message of the song could be taken as a harbinger of things to come for this new series - Let it shine, let it shine!