Composer Tobias Picker will join the Columbia Orchestra in a performance of his work The Encantadas, a musical picture of the Galapagos Islands, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts.

The concert, "To the Sea," will include a performance by mezzo-soprano Kyle Engler of Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures, Op. 37, a series of poems about the sea and sailing.

The Encantadas is based on a collection of 10 essays of the same name by Herman Melville describing his visit to the Galapagos to research the novel Moby Dick, said Tedd Griepentrog, the orchestra's executive director. Picker will read from the essays to narrate his work.

Picker and Bill Scanlan Murphy will discuss The Encantadas and Elgar's Sea Pictures at 6:30 p.m. in the Wilde Lake High School Mini-Theater, adjacent to Jim Rouse Theatre. Murphy, a member of the music faculty of Howard Community College, holds a degree in naval architecture from Liverpool Polytechnic in England.

Two Senior Division winners of the orchestra's 2002 Young Artist Competition - cellist Laura Hung, a junior at Centennial High School, and clarinetist Jason Shafer, an Atholton High School sophomore - also will perform.

Tickets are $12; $10 for senior citizens; $5 for full-time students. Tickets can be purchased at www.columbiaorchestra.org, Music and Arts Centers in Chatham Station shopping center and in Laurel, or from the Columbia Association. Tickets also will be available at the door.

The Jim Rouse Theatre at Wilde Lake High School is at 5460 Trumpeter Road, Columbia.

Information: 410-381-2004 or send e-mail to execdir@colum biaorchestra.org.