The NIU philharmonic will play its final concert of the season at 8 p.m. tonight in Boutell Memorial Concert Hall. When the philharmonic returns in the fall, they will have a new conductor.

Lucia Matos, currently the conductor and director of the University Symphony Orchestra at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, will be taking the position of NIU philharmonic’s conductor in August.

Originally from Brazil, Matos came to the U.S. with a fellowship to the University of Iowa in 1998. She has guest-conducted in Hungary and recorded in the Czech Republic.

The quality of NIU’s music program and faculty were the determining factors in Matos’ decision to conduct here.

“I also had a very good experience at the interview, meeting the faculty and the administration and working with the students, in both orchestra and opera rehearsal,” Matos said.

Matos can speak English, Portugese, Italian and French. She also has what she calls “basic knowledge” of German, Spanish, Czech, Romanian and Hungarian.

“I don’t actually speak them, but I could run a rehearsal, if I combine them with one of the languages I know better,” Matos said.

Matos plans to incorporate contemporary and Latin American music into the NIU Philharmonic’s repertoire.

Matos’ studying in Iowa, conducting in Wisconsin and now coming to DeKalb would seem to indicate a propensity to the American Midwest, but she dismisses this as the result of pure chance.

“It was a coincidence,” Matos said.

On the philharmonic’s program tonight will be Mozart’s “Symphony No. 31 in D Major” (“Paris”) and “Symphony No. 4 in G Major” by Gustav Mahler. NIU faculty member Orna Arania will participate as guest soprano, according to an NIU press release.