The UC Davis Symphony will play before members of the French cabinet and the Paris Orchestra as it tours France for nearly two weeks, giving concerts to celebrate the 200th birthday of French composer Hector Berlioz.

Conductor D. Kern Holoman, a Berlioz biographer and music scholar, is traveling with 78 orchestra members to Paris and the provinces as part of the French national musical holiday, which is dedicated to Berlioz this year.

Born in 1803, Berlioz is one of Europe's most famous Romantic composers. He joins Debussy and Messiaen to make up the pantheon of France's most talented composers.

The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra is more than just an ordinary American college symphony in the eyes of the French because of Holoman's scholarship. "Few Berlioz experts have their own orchestra that can test new musical theories," Holoman says.

The concerts will be given June 20 to 27. The trip was triggered by an invitation from Sorbonne University, whose chorus will accompany the American university symphony for its first two concerts, June 20 and 21. Two concerts will be given the provinces, one in Mantes-la-Jolie on June 22, and the other in "Berlioz country" in Oyonnax on June 25.

Holoman says the final concert in Paris on June 27 will be the "pièce de résistance." The symphony will play at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique. The hall, now housing the Paris theatrical conservatory, once was the concert hall where Berlioz had symphonies play his music before a thousand listeners.

For the UC Davis Symphony, the audience will include French dignitaries, premier Parisian musicians and "a few hundred of our friends" in the revamped hall, which now seats 600, Holoman says.

To learn more about the symphony's trip and keep current with its concerts, visit the UC Davis multimedia Web site on the Berlioz tour at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/symphony/. The site includes the latest news, video and text interviews, an audio recording of the UC Davis Symphony's signature Berlioz piece, a slide show to be updated as the symphony performs, and related links.