The design experts at Issis & Sons Furniture Gallery feel strongly that your home should be a reflection of who you are. “Your rooms should have your personality – not the decorator’s,” said Nancy Gowens, the company’s operations manager. She and Issis & Sons owner and founder Steve Issis kept that philosophy in mind as they set to work transforming the great room in this year’s Decorators’ ShowHouse. The house benefits the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, so the pair created a harmonious space that sings with style. One piece in the room pays special tribute to the Alabama Symphony. Steve Issis brought in a Steinway baby grand piano that was hand-built in 1911. Musicians will play it during the tour.

Most Southerners don’t need this type of advice, but the internet is full of tips on how to welcome friends to your home: Greet them warmly. Invite them inside. Offer to give them a tour of your house. Volunteers at the Decorators’ ShowHouse tick all those boxes.

Hey there, Hogwarts fans! Alabama Symphony Orchestra presents ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Concert’ April 12-13

Carlos Izcaray was planning the American Youth Symphony’s season when the thought occurred: Why not make this the year of the woman?

Alabama Symphony Orchestra performs Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” March 22-23, 7PM, at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham. We’ve got four fresh reasons to get those tickets today to hear one of the greatest works in American music history. Seats start at $24. Use code AppSpring25 for 25% off tickets.

Berlin to Birmingham isn’t a move many people make, but Venezuela-born Carlos Izcaray and his wife, Yolanda Serafimov, jumped right in, and after three years, Carlos says they’re settling right in to the Edgewood community of Homewood. “It’s very different. It’s a tight community,” he says, in a soft, hypnotizing accent that sounds like words rolling of his tongue like water. “It’s gone very nicely,” he says. “We don’t feel like newbies anymore.”

Alabama Symphony Orchestra Red Diamond SuperPOPS! and Samford University Wright Center present “Disney in Concert: Tale as Old as Time” Saturday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m.

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra presents Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet Feb. 15-16 at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center.

What’s your favorite Disney musical score between 1940 and today? I bet you’ll find it on the program for Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s next SuperPOPS! performance, Disney in Concert: Tale as Old as Time. Get your tickets before they’re gone. This show is one night only, Saturday, February 23, 7PM, at the Wright Center, with seats starting at $19.

As he watches the political unrest in his native country grow, the Venezuela-born conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Carlos Izcaray, is turning to a familiar place in search of solace and hope: music.