Over the next three weekends, you can hear some of classical music's future as 106 college-age musicians from this country and Europe participate in the 15th National Orchestral Institute (NOI), sponsored by the University of Maryland's School of Music in College Park. The students, chosen from 500 who auditioned, arrived last week for the training program, which is designed as a bridge between academic life and a professional career. (Several NOI alum have landed orchestral jobs in the United States and abroad.)

In addition to studying with principal players from major orchestras, taking seminars and honing audition skills, participants also will come together as an orchestra and perform three concerts with noted conductors. The first is at 8 p.m. Saturday, when Michael Stern leads Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, Debussy's La Mer and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.

Gerard Schwartz, music director of the Seattle Symphony, will conduct an overture by neglected American composer John Knowles Paine, as well as Elgar's Enigma Variations and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 on June 15. Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, an eminent veteran of the podium, will conduct the young musicians in one of his own compositions, as well as Bruckner's Symphony No. 9, on June 22.

All performances will take place at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Stadium Drive, College Park. Tickets are $15, $12 for seniors, $5 for students. Call 301-405-2787.