A wave of music will wash over the audience on Thursday, May 3, as the University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra plays a free water-themed concert of classical works to celebrate spring.

The performance, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Ann Arbor’s famed Hill Auditorium, will feature works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Respighi and Wagner.

It is free and open to all ages, with a suggested admission of $1. No tickets are required. Martin Philbert, Ph.D., dean of the U-M School of Public Health, will give opening remarks.

LSO music director Oriol Sans has chosen water-inspired pieces from four major classical composers, which he and assistant conductor Matthew B. Dell will conduct. They are:

- The Hebrides Overture by Felix Mendelssohn, inspired by the composer’s trip to Fingal’s Cave, a sea cavern in Scotland’s Hebrides Islands

- Fountains of Rome by Ottorino Respighi, depicting four of Rome’s fountains during different times of the day

- The Overture to The Flying Dutchman, from an opera in which Richard Wagner tells the tale of a sea captain doomed to sail the seas forever

- Symphony No. 6, op. 68, in F Major by Ludwig van Beethoven, often called the “Pastoral” symphony for its themes of babbling brooks, thunderstorms, and carousing peasants.

Sans is a recent graduate of, and Dell is a student in, the noted orchestral conducting program at the U-M School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

For more information on the concert or the LSO, visit www.umich.edu/~lsorch or www.facebook.com/umlso, send e-mail to orchestra@umich.edu, or call (734) 936-ARTS.