This morning, start your weekend early by taking some extra time at lunch for the N.C. Symphony's final Friday Favorites of the season in Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall. Resident conductor William Henry Curry sets the tone for relaxing outdoors with excerpts from Copland's "The Tender Land" and Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral").

The rest of the weekend boasts a variety of vocal offerings, starting Saturday night in UNC's Memorial Hall with Carl Orff's dramatic cantata "Carmina Burana." Sue Klausmeyer conducts the orchestra, the Chapel Hill Community Chorus Symphonic Chorus, and the North Carolina Boys Choir.

Sunday forces a choice among three unusual performances. At Chapel Hill's Horace Williams House, a benefit concert for the city's Preservation Society features soprano Florence Peacock and mezzo Dorrie Casey in arias by Bach and Telemann, accompanied by harpsichord, cello and a range of baroque wind instruments.

Durham's Carolina Theatre is the site for the season finale of the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, celebrating its 25th year. Lorenzo Muti leads an intriguing mix of selections: Vaughan Williams' Oboe Concerto (with soloist Joseph Robinson, longtime principal oboist for the N.Y. Philharmonic), Finzi's "A Severn Rhapsody," and Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella."

In Raleigh's Hillyer Memorial Christian Church, conductor Paul Conway reveals yet another set of rarely heard choral works, Gounod's "The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross" and Schumann's Requiem. The free concert features soloists Penelope Jensen, Nancy Brenner, David Wiehle and Lewis Moore, along with the Hillyer Community Chorus and Orchestra.

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