LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BEATLES! The music of the Fab Four will be featured at the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra's annual friends and family concert Jan. 20. (Band photo by Marion S. Trikosko via Library of Congress / Background photo via Pablo Center.)

In February 1964, The Beatles landed in the United States for the first time, debuted on the popular Sunday night variety TV program The Ed Sullivan Show, and popular music as we know it was never the same again.

Sixty years later the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Frank A. Watkins, will celebrate the Fab Four with Samuel Hyken’s A Beatles Guide to the Orchestra at its annual free friends family concert at 2pm, Saturday, Jan. 20, at the Pablo Center at the Confluence. Similar to Benjamin Britten’s A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Hyken’s narrated half-hour piece uses Beatle songs – such as When I’m 64 and Hey Jude, among others – to introduce youngsters, oldsters, and hipsters alike to individual instruments and sections of the orchestra.

The concert will also feature the Cello Connection group playing Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor. The Eau Claire Memorial High School orchestra directed by Soma Pierce Smit will provide lobby music as well as the ever popular musical instrument petting zoo for which this concert is known.

Although admission is free, reserved seating is required. To reserve free tickets, visit pablocenter.org.