The spotlight will shine on some of the School of Music's brightest musicians Sunday afternoon as the Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra showcases the winners of its recent concerto competition.

Under the direction of Maestro Gerardo Edelstein, the three-part concert begins with the premiere of De Profundis, a piece that won Phil Torbert (graduate- performance) the composition portion of the concerto competition in December.

The piece will be conducted by Christian Baldini (graduate-conducting), the orchestra's assistant teaching assistant, who said he is excited to unveil the piece.

Torbert said De Profundis, which means "out of the depths" in Latin, was inspired by C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. He wrote its first half and its very end, but then was hit by a "composer's block."

A year later, Torbert was hit even harder by Sept. 11. Affected on a personal level, he decided to incorporate the events of that morning into De Profundis.

With the piece's beats serving as a foundation, the section that Torbert had previously been unable to pen now followed a timeline of the crashing planes.

"It's dark, and it's about redemption," Torbert said of the beginning of De Profundis' second half. "It all builds up to the two buildings collapsing."

At that point in the piece, the orchestra loudly and dramatically improvises to emulate the chaos of Sept. 11 in "a mixture of about every sound you can get from an orchestra," Torbert said.

After De Profundis slowly winds down, the spotlight will shift onto flutist Cynthia Carpentieri (graduate-performance), who will take the stage as she performs Franz Doppler's Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy for Flute and Orchestra.

Carpentieri is one of two musicians who won the soloist portion of the concerto competition, which was held at the beginning of this semester.

The Philharmonic usually devotes February performances to student soloists and composers, Edelstein said, but recent bad weather called for a change in the program. Correy Tu (graduate-performance), the other winner of the soloist competition, will perform Frederick Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 next month.

The third part of the concert will be the entire orchestra performing Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Elgar named each of the composition's 14 movements for one of his friends. But rather than bearing their full names, Edelstein said he used their initials. For example, a piece titled "Variation 1: C.A.E." was dedicated to the composer's wife, Caroline Alice Elgar.

The full title of the piece, Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), implies that each of its movements is a musical reworking of one central theme. However, Elgar never made that theme known.

"The theme chosen for the piece has influence from other composers," Edelstein said, "but Elgar will never tell from whom he got the idea."

Edelstein encourages everyone to check out Sunday's concert.

"We always have successful performances," Edelstein said. "Anyone who has not seen one of our performances will be in for a real treat."