jeffmidkiff.com

Jeff Midkiff, a monster mandolin player who worked with acts including Lonesome River Band before going the teacher/composer route, has a nice gig coming up on Saturday in the Northeast.

Midkiff takes his mandolin concerto “From The Blue Ridge” — and presumably, his mandolin — to play with Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra by Canandaigua Lake, one of New York’s storied Finger Lakes. The summer series show happens 30 miles south of Rochester, Midkiff tells us in an e-mail.

“It’s not often you’ll hear a mandolin concerto followed by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture,” Midkiff wrote. ” There should be a lot of fireworks!”

He’ll bring the concerto a good deal closer to home early next year, when he performs with the Williamsburg Symphonia on Jan. 7-8. If you’re anywhere near Shreveport, La., on Nov. 17, you can hear him with that city’s symphony (no word on whether Bossier City has a competing classical unit).

Meanwhile, check out some really awful video with decent audio I shot on Midkiff’s Roanoke Symphony Orchestra colleague Julie Hickox’s cell phone (my phone’s battery had died. Stupid phone. Stupid owner.). The occasion was Festival in the Park. The act was Maestro David Wiley and Symphony Underground, a small group playing jazz, pop, ragtime and original compositions by Wiley and Midkiff. The song was Midkiff’s “A Visit From the Muse.”