The President’s Festival of the Arts held its second concert of dance and music performances Friday night in the Reynolds Performing Arts Center.

The annual music festival for the OU president expanded this year to include all the schools of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts — the schools of music, drama, dance and musical theater — at suggestion of the college dean Rich Taylor.

Music performances included Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Prodigal Son” ballet performed by the School of Dance’s Oklahoma Festival Ballet and Contemporary Dance Oklahoma with the School of Music’s Symphony Orchestra.

Conductor Jonathan Shames said he and choreographer Mary Margaret Holt thought Prokofiev’s three-scene ballet’s musical style seemed to suit both performing groups they had this year.

“‘Prodigal Son’ fit in clearly with the theme of the festival,” said Shames, who is an associate conducting professor in the School of Music. “Director Mary Margaret Holt … and I have often spoken of the work — I think we both love and admire it.”

Shames also performed a four-hand piano sonata by famed composer Mozart with his wife Stephanie Leon Shames, called “Sonata in D major for Piano Four Hands.”

“The Mozart sonata as well as the rest of the music of the first half is simply beautiful, evocative music which our choreographers — Director Holt, Holly Schmidt, Rebecca Herrin and Austin Hartel — wanted to use,” he said.

Director Holt, who with Holly Schmidt also choreographed Maurice Ravel’s “Suite,” said the music has natural duality in the theme of “Saints and Sinners.”

“I think there are just elements of ‘Saints and Sinners’ that are pure [in the music],” said Holt. “‘Saints and Sinners’ is about duality — duality in the arts, duality in the arts, duality in the creative process. Sometimes the creative process goes very smoothly and easily, and sometimes the creative process stumbles along a bit.”

Holt said she believes this essential ‘duality’ in the President’s Festival would manifest during the performances for the audience.

“[The music is] irregular in its structure, so that presents come interest in terms of listening and in terms of its choreography,” she said. “For the audience it should seem as everything is coming very naturally.”

The President’s Festival concerts conclude Sunday afternoon with a performance by the OU Combined Choirs of Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah.”