ITHACA, N.Y. -- John Hsu, one of Cornell University's most beloved professors and musicians -- and 50-year faculty member -- will conduct a "farewell concert," Saturday, March 12.

Hsu, Cornell's Old Dominion Foundation Professor of Music, will mark the occasion of his retirement by conducting a gala performance of The Creation by Joseph Haydn at Ithaca College's Ford Hall, within the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Prior to the performance, which begins at 8 p.m., James Webster, Cornell's Goldwin Smith Professor of Music, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. in the center's Iger Lecture Hall.

Admission to the concert is $15 (students $8). Tickets may be purchased through the Ticket Center at Clinton House, (607) 273-4497; at the Willard Straight Hall Ticket Office at Cornell; or online at either http://www.IthacaEvents.com or http://www.arts.cornell.edu/music/concerts.html .

Hsu has marshaled the combined forces of Cornell's Chorus and Glee Club and a 53-piece "Creation Festival Orchestra" composed of players from the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Binghamton Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic and other professionals in the upstate area. The soloists are: soprano Judith Kellock of the Cornell faculty, tenor David Parks of the Ithaca College faculty, and baritone Richard Lalli from Yale University.

A member of the Cornell music faculty since 1955, Hsu has taught students and conducted the Cornell Collegium Musicum, the Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra and the Sage Chapel Choir. He is artistic director emeritus of the Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities, founder of the Apollo Ensemble (a period-instrument chamber orchestra), and a world-renown player of the viola da gamba and baryton. As instrumentalist and conductor, he has

recorded award-winning CDs and toured throughout this country and Europe. In May 2000, the government of France and its Ministry of Culture honored him with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his extensive research on the music of French composer Marin Marais.