Public radio’s “From the Top,” a weekly program that showcases outstanding young classical musicians, marks its 10th anniversary season by coming back to a place the show visited seven years ago: Jones Concert Hall in Baylor University’s McCrary Music Building.

In that 2002 concert audience was a 9-year-old Lorena violin student named Mia Orosco. On Wednesday night, Orosco returns, too, but as one of the program’s six featured performers and the only one from the Waco area.

The Waco concert/taping, presented by Waco public radio station KWBU, will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Jones Concert Hall. Classical pianist Christopher O’Riley will host the show and accompany young musicians where needed, as he’s done throughout “From the Top’s” 10-year run.

“From the Top” live taping

Performance: 7 p.m. Wednesday at Jones Concert Hall in Baylor University’s McCrary Music Building.

Tickets: $20, with a $5 discount for KWBU members and Baylor students, faculty and staff. Advance tickets sold in the McCrary Music Building foyer between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays. Tickets are also available online at www.baylor.edu/kwbu but without the discount.

Acclaimed pianist Christopher O'Riley returns to Waco to host the taping of the public radio program "From the Top" on Wednesday night at Baylor University's Jones Concert Hall.

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Mia Orosco

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The hour-long program, which airs on KWBU-FM (103.3) at 2 p.m. Sundays with a rebroadcast at 7 p.m. Tuesdays, features performances by talented high school and middle school students. It’s not just the music, though: O’Riley, a charming and gracious host, invariably gets his young performers to share interesting stories about themselves. There’s a healthy dollop of humor, usually staged by the show’s guests, thrown in, as well.

“From the Top” has grown to a national audience of some 700,000 listeners on 250 public radio stations. Two years ago, a television version of the show started on public television (it’s on KWBU-TV, Channel 34, at 9:30 p.m. Thursdays.). Since 2005, the sponsoring Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has awarded more than $1 million in scholarship and career assistance to budding classical musicians heard on the show.

The development of the radio program into a career steppingstone for some is gratifying for O’Riley, an internationally renowned pianist with a distinguished career. “The fact that we’re now an arena and venue for young talent to come and showcase their talent is something I think we’re very proud of,” he said in a recent phone interview.

“From the Top’s” 10th anniversary tour, in fact, will feature program alumni at each taping. Wednesday’s Waco show includes bassoonist Lamont Barlow, now a Columbia University Medical School student; Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award winner Yurie Mitsuhashi, a violinist from Fort Lee, N.J.; and pianist Vijay Venkatesh from Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Orosco, daughter of Nonie and Tina Orosco, will take the stage as a champion fiddler, having won several Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association competitions in recent years. The home-schooled violinist, a student of Julia Hardie, will play “Sally Gooden,” a fiddle standard. “I submitted a classical piece and a fiddle one. They wanted the fiddle one. I was very surprised,” Orosco said.

Rounding out the program’s talent are 17-year-old organist Samuel Gaskin, of College Station, and 15-year-old cellist Nathanial Smith, of Brandon, Miss.

They’ll perform their pieces in a dress rehearsal the day before the live taping, and those performances are recorded — a behind-the-scenes secret that eases stage nerves for the program. Is Orosco nervous? “I get nervous all the time, usually about two seconds before I play,” she confided. “There may be a little more pressure because there will be people who know a lot about music, but it should be a lot more fun.”

Playing before one’s peers and knowing the radio program will take the best of the two recordings “makes it much less strenuous” for the young players, O’Riley said.

Still, the excitement and energy provided by a live, supportive audience tend to boost musicians to a higher level of playing. “Invariably, we end up using the performance before the live audience,” O’Riley said. “It takes it up a notch.”

Ten years of accompanying many of “From the Top’s” young instrumentalists and singers means a bit more preparation for O’Riley than a typical radio program host would face. “I’ve got a pile of music in front of me, for the next four shows,” he said. During the program break, O’Riley entertains the audience with what he wants to play.

On his return to Jones Concert Hall two years ago for a solo recital sponsored by the Baylor School of Music, the pianist played a program that paired arrangements of songs by British rock band Radiohead with a set of piano variations by Dmitri Shostakovich. O’Riley’s latest CD, Out of My Hands, features his arrangements of songs by Nirvana (“Heart-Shaped Box”), the Cocteau Twins, the Smiths, Tori Amos, R.E.M. and others. However, O’Riley said there simply was more material from the songwriters/bands featured in those three CDs. “It’s always been about the song,” he said.

Wednesday night’s show, however, will find him in a contemporary classical vein. He’ll play from Kenneth Fuchs’ “Falling Canons,” a work based on Don DeLillo’s Sept. 11 novel Falling Man. O’Riley first played the piece for an Oct. 9 “From the Top” taping in Salt Lake City; his second performance will be at the Waco show.

Wednesday’s program taping will air the week of Dec. 14.

choover@wacotrib.com

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