Harpist David Ice is the featured soloist in the Verde Valley Sinfonietta’s second concert of the season, Winter Serenade.

The concert takes place Sunday, Feb. 12, at 2:30 p.m. in the Sedona Performing Arts Center, 995 Upper Red Rock Loop Road.

An eclectic program of music from around the world will be guest conducted by Bill Cummings, one of three candidates for the Sinfonietta’s music director position. The concert is sponsored by Peter and Kathy Wege of Sedona.

General admission tickets are $30 at the door for adults and $25 if purchased online in advance at VVSinfonietta.org. Students age 18 and under are free of charge when accompanied by an adult.

The program will begin with British composer Benjamin Britten’s “Five Courtly Dances” from “Gloriana,” an opera composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953.

For an intriguing change of pace, Ice will be featured in Dave Grusin’s “Anasazi,” composed for solo harp, clarinet and strings. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards.

According to Ice, “Grusin wrote ‘Anasazi’ for 20th Century Fox studio harpist Ann Mason Stockton at her request. I heard Ann perform it and I was able to get the music from her.

As far as I know it’s never been published. I was immediately struck by the harmonies — it’s totally harpistic, yet has an unmistakable chant-like quality that you know could only come from a Native American tradition.”

Next on the program is American contemporary composer Deborah Henson-Conant’s “Baroque Flamenco” Concerto for harp and orchestra.

Ice, a good friend of the composer, said, “Deborah is one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever met, period. She can play the harp — at times even making it sound like the heaviest of heavy metal guitar. Plus she does her own orchestrations, and she should be orchestrating Broadway shows, she’s that intuitive. She also sings like an angel — and is a beautiful woman as well. A bundle of creative energy and art. Deb has been a huge influence in my life, always encouraging me to think outside the box. And she is enormously gracious as well. She encourages each harpist to experiment and make her compositions our own and put our own stamp on it. I think if I played ‘Baroque Flamenco’ exactly as she notated it she would be rather disappointed in me. She wants us to find our own freedom, which is so rare in a composer.”

Following the intermission, the program continues with a classical period work by Spanish composer Juan C. Arriaga — his “Symphony in D Major.” Arriaga wrote this work, his only symphony, at the age of 20 while a student at the Paris Conservatory.

While obviously influenced by composers such as Beethoven and Schubert, he uses harmonies not expected in his day, along with chromaticism and unexpected key changes.

Italian composer Pietro Mascagni’s lush Intermezzo from the opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” is next on this varied program. The opera is considered a classic verismo opera and was premiered in 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.

Mascagni was one of three winners for a competition open to all young Italian composers for this composition based on a popular short story and play by Giovanni Verga.

In a nod to upcoming Valentine’s Day, the program includes two works by two members of the famous Strauss family in 19th century Austria — “Lieb und Wein [Love and Wine] Polka-Mazurka” composed by Josef Strauss and the “Kiss Waltz” by Johann Strauss Jr.

A younger brother of the more famous Johann II, Josef had talents as an artist, painter, poet, dramatist, composer and inventor. He was a true renaissance man of his time. Johann Strauss Jr., known as the Waltz King, was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

The concert ends most fittingly with John Phillip Sousa’s “Daughters of Texas March.” Sousa is well regarded as perhaps the greatest composer of military marches.

Guest conductor Cummings is a music instructor in the Prescott Unified School District. He taught for 38 years in the public school orchestra classroom in the Flagstaff school district and the Dallas independent school district.

He has conducted many regional honor orchestras in Arizona and has a master’s degree in conducting from NAU.

Since 2015, Cummings has been the concertmaster of the Sinfonietta. He was featured soloist in the first concert of the 2016-17 season on Nov. 13.

Ice has been a film editor by trade; his Hollywood credits include over 65 feature films and six years of the TV series “M*A*S*H.” He started harp lessons in his mid-20s as a relaxation therapy, not intending a new career. He is principal harp with the Musica Nova Orchestra, North Valley Symphony, and the Prescott Pops Orchestra.

Ice has performed with the Phoenix Symphony, Opera El Paso, Symphony of the West Valley, Flagstaff Symphony, Prescott Chamber Orchestra, Arizona Opera, Arizona Theater Company and many shows with TheaterWorks. Ice has been a guest lecturer at the Royal College of Music in London as well as Dublin, Ireland, and Adelaide, Australia.

“There are more moving parts in a modern concert harp than there are in the engine of your car. The instrument is a technological and engineering marvel and I’m always amazed it works at all,” Ice said.

For additional information, visit VVSinfonietta.org.