Ordinarily, if you encounter the name "Strauss" at a classical concert, it's likely to be Johann or Richard -- not Levi.

But for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra's first-in-awhile "Beethoven & Blue Jeans" Masterworks concerts, Levi Strauss is just as welcome.

Most of the audience was in denim, or at least casually dressed; the orchestra was in jeans, topped with this year's black "Beethoven & Blue Jeans" T-shirts instead of concert blacks.

Saturday night at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall, Music Director Geoffrey Robson turned the traditional program order on its head, opening with the symphony -- Ludwig van Beethoven's c-minor Symphony No. 5.

Right from the opening four-note "da-da-da-DA" opening motif (which, by the way, supposedly symbolizes fate knocking at the door), Robson's and the orchestra's reading of the popular work was in high gear, full of vim and vigor.

With