Community Orchestra Beach Cities Symphony is opening its next season with big changes as its long time conductor of 25 years, Barry Brisk retired at the end of last season.

The first performance is appropriately titled “A New Beginning” as the orchestra will be temporarily working with four different conductors this 2019 to 2020 season for each of the four free concerts held at El Camino College, Board member and orchestra bassoon player Erika Robinson said.

Guest conductor Geoffrey Pope will lead the first concert of Beach Cities Symphony’s 70th season in the ECC Marsee Auditorium on Friday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m.

A pre-concert lecture will be given by Pope and will begin at 7:15 p.m. The show will consist of three classical pieces, opening with Gioachino Rossini’s “Overture to La Gazza Ladra” and closing with Igor Stravinsky’s “Suite from the Firebird”.

Johannes Brahm’s “Piano Concerto No.1” will be lead by guest piano soloist Georgi Slavchev.

Guests will have to pay $3 for parking on campus, but the concert is free and important for the community, Director of the Center of the Arts Rick Christophersen said.

“We’ve been rehearsing for this concert since September,” Beach Cities Symphony president and orchestra french horn player Bob Peterson said. “Its wonderful classical music, but it’s heavy stuff, if you don’t like classical music you will be bored stiff.”

Attendees can look forward to a special surprise right before the second half of the concert, Robinson added.

“Its an ambitious concert but it’s going to be a good one,” said Robinson. “The soloist Georgi Slavchev is amazing in his own right, he’s an amazing pianist, so that in and of itself is a treat.”

More information about Beach Cities Symphony Orchestra’s full 2019 to 2020 season is available on its website, Facebook and Instagram.