ENTERTAINMENT NOTES

LITTLE ROCK — Elsewhere in entertainment and the arts this weekend:

The Conway Symphony Orchestra will kick off its 27th season with a community concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the Kris Allen stage at Simon Park on Front Street in downtown Conway. Violinist Darby BeDell, the Conway Symphony’s principal second violin and a member of the Arkansas Symphony and that orchestra’s Rockefeller Quartet, will be the soloist in “Winter” from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and the orchestra will also play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Music Director Israel Getzov will conduct. If it rains, the concert will be moved to the Snow Fine Arts Center recital hall, University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway. The performance is underwritten by Southwestern Energy Co. Admission is free; Bring friends, families, chairs and blankets. Call (501) 269-1066.

Country duo Bomshel — Kristy Osmunson and Kelley Shepard — headlines the Bridge Bash, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday in Cotter, on the White River in Baxter County. The Foodbank of North Central Arkansas, for which this is a benefit, hopes the 9 a.m. “Stand Up for Hope” on the Rainbow Bridge (donation: $20) attracts “2,000 people, $40,000 raised, 200,000 meals for our neighbors in need.” Afterward, in Big Spring Park, the festival will feature music and dance acts on three stages, car and motorcycle shows, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s aquarium and children’s activities. Admission is free; bring your lawn chair. Call (870) 499-7565 or visit foodbanknca.org.

Grammy award-winning Nashville singer-songwriter Richard Leigh, who wrote “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” and “I’ll Get Over You” for Crystal Gayle among other hits, will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday at Khalil’s Pub & Grill, 110 S. Shackleford Road, Little Rock, sponsored by the Central Arkansas Chapter of the Nashville Songwriters Association International. Leigh will also conduct a songwriting workshop Saturday at Little Rock’s Second Presbyterian Church. Concert admission is $20 in advance, $25 at the door; workshop fee is $50, $45 for NSAI members. Call (501) 554-1602 or e-mail chas. t.crow@gmail.com.

More than 20 singers, instrumentalists, actors and dancers from across the country, will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute in German and English as part of the Muses Creative Artistry Project’s fourth annual Opera Gala Friday in Hot Springs. The event starts at 6 p.m. with a wine reception at the 3 Arts Cafe in the lobby of the Hale Bathhouse on Bathhouse Row (Central Avenue); attendees will head, via the lawn of the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, Central Avenue and Fountain Street, to the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom for heavy hors d’oeuvres and The Magic Flute. Tickets are $75, $750 for a table of 10. Call (501) 463-4514 or visit themusesproject.org.

Pianist Stephen Beus will solo in the Piano Concerto No. 3 in an all-Beethoven concert with the Texarkana Symphony and conductor Marc-Andre Bougie, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Perot Theatre, 219 Main St., Texarkana. The program will also feature Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” and the Egmont Overture. Bougie will lead a concert preview at 6:40. Tickets are $45, $37 and $23 with discounts for students and groups. Call (903) 792-4992 or visit texarkanasymphony.org.

The Central Arkansas Library System will offer special events and displays during Banned Books Week, Saturday-Oct. 1, starting with Uncensored, local actors reading scenes from books that have been banned or challenged, at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Darragh Center, CALS Main Library, 100 Rock St., Little Rock. A reception will follow. Admission is free but reservations are requested; call (501) 918-3098 or e-mail bmooy@cals.org. A schedule of Banned Books Week activities is available at cals.org.

Norman Boehm, resident pianist at Hendrix College, will play works by University of Arkansas at Little Rock resident composer Robert Boury and some of his own compositions at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, Fine Arts Building, UALR, 2801 S. University Ave., Little Rock. The program will include Boehm’s Prelude in C major, Sonata in F major (“in the style of Haydn”), Prelude in E-flat major, Dance Rhapsody and Reminiscences: Suite for Piano, plus Boury’s Sonatina in G major, Portrait of Chopin and Homage to Jesse James. Admission is free. Call (501) 569-3294.

The Ouachita Baptist University theater arts department will stage the children’s show Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr. (music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, Bob Dorough, Dave Frishberg, Kathy Mandry, George Newall and Tom Yohe, book by Scott Ferguson, Kyle Hall and George Keating) at 7 p.m. today-Saturday and Monday-Tuesday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Verser Theater at OBU in Arkadelphia. Tickets are $6. Call (870) 245-5555 or visit obu. edu/boxoffice.

Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson will headline a concert at 7 p.m. Friday and Riders in the Sky will headline at 7 p.m. Saturday, part of the Cowboy Weekend at the Ozark Folk Center, 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View. Tickets to each concert are $20. Call (870) 269-3851 or visit ozarkfolkcenter.com.

Tickets for comedianventriloquist Jeff Dunham’s 8 p.m. March 9 “Controlled Chaos” show at North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena — $43.50 plus taxes and handling charges — go on sale at 10 a.m. Sept. 30 at the Verizon Arena box office and all Ticketmaster outlets. Call (800) 745-3000 or visit ticketmaster.com. The arena is using its paperless ticket system for up to 2,500 seats.