Music spotlight: SPCO's season finale concerts

Friday-next Sunday: Although it was overshadowed by the longer labor dispute at the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra had plenty of woe of its own recently. A musician lockout lasting 191 days silenced most of the 2012-13 season. A settlement was reached in late April 2013 that lowered musician pay by 18.6 percent and reduced the size of the full-time orchestra. The current season comes to a close next weekend in three concerts in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Roberto Abbado will conduct Schubert's melody-rich Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished," as well as Haydn's Symphony No. 102. Associate concertmaster Ruggero Allifranchini (pictured) fiddles front-and-center in Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. After these three concerts, the SPCO will not be heard again until mid-September. (8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. at Ordway Center, 5th and Washington Sts., St. Paul; 2 p.m. next Sun. at Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota, 2128 S. 4th St., Mpls. $10-$40. 651-291-1144, www.thespco.org.)

CLAUDE PECK