ALBANY/CORVALLIS - In a bold, last-ditch effort in the bottom of the ninth inning, the "Mudville 9" baseball team managed to force one more game during its 2009 season.

Guest announcer Marion Rossi will give a play-by-play as the final game of the season unfolds for our come-from-behind heroes with musical accompaniment by the Willamette Valley Community Orchestra at two concerts this weekend.

Ernest L. Thayer's immortal poem "Casey at the Bat" will be performed with Bill Holcombe's accompanying score for narrator and orchestra as part of the the orchestra's "Made in America" concerts, which will also feature works by Aaron Copland, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and Antonin Dvorak.

The orchestra will present two concerts. The first will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at First Christian Church in Albany. An encore concert will take place at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, at Ashbrook Independent School in Corvallis.

Opening the concerts will be Antonin Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9 in E Minor," better known as "From the New World." Perhaps the most popular of Dvorak's works, the symphony was composed in New York City during the first few months of 1893 while Dvorak served as director of the newly founded National Conservatory of Music.

Although Dvorak was somewhat uncomfortable in this busy urban setting, he found it a marvelous place to indulge his life-long fascination with trains and he developed a new interest in watching the shipping activities at the docks.

Musically, he acquired an admiration for the expressive qualities of the African-American and Native American music that he heard from students and visitors at the conservatory. Within three months of his arrival in the U.S., Dvorak began sketching a new work that was to be his last and most famous symphony. Many romantic myths have swirled around this piece, but these were strongly rebuffed by Dvorak, who wrote: "Omit the nonsense about my having made use of 'Indian' and 'American' motives. That is a lie. I tried to write only in the spirit of those national American melodies."

He went on to say, "I should never have written the symphony like I have, if I hadn't seen America."

Following a brief intermission, the Willamette Valley Community Orchestra will perform Aaron Copland's incidental music to "Our Town."

Adapted in 1940 as a film version of the play of the same name by Thornton Wilder, the film was nominated for a number of Academy Awards, including "Best Picture," "Best Actress" and "Best Score." The play is set in the fictional community of Grover's Corners, modeled upon several New Hampshire towns in the Mount Monadnock region, and is the story of an average town's citizens in the early 20th century as depicted through their everyday lives. Copland understood from the beginning what he had to do, observing that "the composer is in a special position to appreciate what music does to a film because he sees it first without any music."

His score beautifully evokes New England hymns.

The "Made in America" concert will include a dramatic tribute to "America's Favorite Pastime."

Subtitled "A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888," "Casey at the Bat" was originally a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest L. Thayer.

First published in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized, most notably by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.

In the poem, a baseball team from the fictional town of Mudville (implied to be the home team) is losing by two runs with two outs in their last "at bats," but they think they can win "if only" they could somehow get "mighty Casey" up to bat. Two weak hitters manage to get on base, and Casey comes to bat with the tying run in scoring position. The beloved Casey, Mudville's star player, is so confident in his abilities that he doesn't swing at the first two pitches, both strikes.

Adapted for narrator and orchestra by Bill Holcombe, the score features wonderful musical moments that work hand-in-hand with the narration to tell the tale of "Casey at the Bat."

Joining the orchestra for these performances will be Marion O. Rossi, an associate professor of theatre at Oregon State University. Rossi has also directed more than 30 productions for the University Theatre, most recently the world premiere of John Frohnmayer's original musical "Spin." His recent acting credits include Henri in Willamette Stage Company's "Heroes" and Andrey Botvinnik in "A Walk in the Woods" and most-recently Willy Loman in Hillsboro-based Bag&Baggage Productions' "Death of A Salesman."

The concert program ends with selections from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!"

There will be free pre-concert discussions entitled "What the Music Means to Me" beginning at 3:30 p.m. both days.

Tickets to the concerts are 10 for adults, $5 for college and university students and free for youth under age 18.

The Willamette Valley Concert Orchestra, conducted by Sean Paul Mills, is a nonprofit, community-based orchestra comprised of instrumentalists from throughout the Willamette Valley.