Get ready for the 2009 Hard Hat Tour. The ongoing $250 million modernization project underway on the College of Marin campus in Kentfield has forced students to step around construction sites while dealing with the noise and commotion. The construction has blocked parking access and made it difficult to hold special events on campus, so COM Symphony Orchestra music director Tara Flandreau has decided to take the show on the road.

This week, the 55-member symphony will perform a program of music by a pair of Russian masters--Shostakovich's landmark Symphony No. 5 and Tchaikovsky's bombastic Piano Concerto No. 1--in three communities throughout the county.

Pianist Paul Smith, a COM instructor also known as a champion of contemporary opera, will perform the piano concerto.

Last year, Smith directed the premiere of Flandreau's opera Broken Jukebox, which was based on the life of Grimes Poznikov, the late San Francisco street artist who was known as the Human Jukebox.

The recession-friendly symphony concerts are admission-free.

When she's not waving a baton, Flandreau is an acclaimed improvisational violinist and violist and member of the Marin Symphony who has performed with the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Wadada Leo Smith and others.

She joined the COM teaching faculty in the mid-'80s and began conducting seven years ago.

The expanded symphony tour presents a considerable challenge for the students and those community members who make up the orchestra, Flandreau says, but it also will offer new performance opportunities.

"We're really looking forward to the chance to show the community what we can do," says Flandreau, who chairs the performing arts department. "Some were a little overwhelmed at first because of the level of difficulty of these pieces, but they're committed and putting in the work.

"There's no question that this is a more intensive performing schedule than we've had in the past, but these players have shown that they are capable of rising to challenges."

The tour also is a chance for the symphony to reach out to the community and cultivate new listeners.

"I'm hoping to attract audience members who always wanted to go to a symphony concert, or always wanted to bring their children, but couldn't afford it," Flandreau says. "In a live setting, this music is so accessible and it has a great sense of immediacy. So I hope we'll reach folks who in the past have found classical-music concerts to be too expensive or too formal.

"I think folks will enjoy this chance to experience something new."

COMING SOON

The College of Marin Symphony performs Nov. 21, at 7:30pm, at St. Hilary Church in Tiburon; Nov. 22, at 3pm, at Unity in Marin Church in Novato; and Nov. 23, at 7:30pm, at the Point Reyes Dance Palace.

Hum a few bars for Greg at gcahill51@gmail.com.

Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.