Before leaving for home for Thanksgiving after a stressful week of exams and papers, students can reward themselves for their hard work by attending a free concert. The Iowa State University Symphony Orchestra will perform a rush hour concert Thursday at the Recital Hall of the music building.

The concert will be from 5:10 to 6 p.m., which means students will have enough time after classes and before dinner for the event.

The concert will be an unique one in that a conductor’s exchange will occur. Dr. Michael Griffith, director of orchestral activities at the University of Wyoming at Laramie will be guest conducting the concert. Meanwhile, Kirk Smith, ISU’s director of orchestral activities, will be guest conducting at the U of W orchestra on the same day.

“It’s the first time we’ve done this for each other,” Griffith said. “It’s really interesting for the students because if students work with the same conductor they don’t get different viewpoints of the music.

“It’s important for the students and the audience to hear different ways of interpreting the music. [The students] also work a little bit harder for a guest conductor.”

The 70-piece orchestra will be performing two pieces from two different eras.

The first selection is the 1972 piece Celtic Dances by William Mathias. “It sounds a little bit exotic because it’s Welsh,” Griffith said. He described the piece as colorful, light and bouncy. According to Mathias,”the music associates with the mythological rites such as spirit of play and lyrical warmth.”

In association with the Welsh Arts Council, Celtic Dances were commissioned for the National Youth Orchestra to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Welsh League of Youth, according to a press release.

The other selection that the orchestra will perform will be Antonin Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. This 1890s piece is known as Dvorak’s best symphonic work.

“Dvorak is a Czech composer, but he lived in New York when he wrote this,” Griffith said. He said that while in New York, Dvorak “investigated the music of black America and wrote classical music based on folk melodies.”

Dvorak’s focus on Negro spirituals influenced him to write “Goin’ Home,” a black folk melody which is a big tune heard in the “New World” Symphony.

The rush hour concert is free and open to the public.