Canberra Symphony Orchestra Llewellyn Series: Horn. August 16 and 17 at 7.30pm. Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music.Bookings: CSO Direct: 6262 6772.

For the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, August is a month packed with events.

Vienna-based horn player Hector McDonald is returning to play at Llewellyn Hall for the first time in almost 30 years, giving the CSO's Recital Three in the Larry Sitsky Room on Sunday, August 13, before joining the orchestra as soloist in the Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat major by Richard Strauss in the Llewellyn Series concert on August 16 and 17.

McDonald was head of brass at the Canberra School of Music in the 1980s before leaving for Vienna where he is now principal horn with the Vienna Symphoniker.

"In Vienna I'm playing with the highest quality musicians in a city which is endowed with two wonderful halls, the Musikverein, or Golden Hall, and the Concert House," McDonald says.

"Where you play makes a difference if you're playing there for many years."

However, he admits that he'd like to come home and spend more time in Australia and he's looking forward to playing in Canberra.

The horn has the reputation of being a challenging instrument to play.

"Yes, it's moody," McDonald says. "On a good day it seems so easy; other days it can seem very difficult. The notes are very close together so to pick out a note successfully and accurately and in good pitch is quite a skill. And there's the issue of stamina: tiredness can affect your embouchure. But it's a fun instrument too. It's a test of your courage every time you play it."

Strauss originally wrote the horn concerto for his father, a leading horn player of his day, but Strauss senior felt that the high notes were too difficult so the premiere of the work was given to Gustav Leinhos. Strauss wrote to his father that the premiere at Meiningen with Hans von Bulow conducting was "a colossal success". From a bravura opening motif the concerto moves to a more lyrical second subject, and then the woodwinds accompany an extroverted horn in the Andante movement, music almost reminiscent of French opera arias. The fast rondo of the last movement and its final scherzo-like bars are a real test for the skill of the horn soloist.

"It's an incredibly demanding work," McDonald says. "It's high, it's low, it's loud, it's soft; a workout, but it shows the understanding that Strauss had of the instrument and the flair that he had for composing. His second horn concerto is a totally different piece, written towards the end of his life and very operatic. It makes the one I'm playing at this concert seem rather naive."

The two other works on the program are Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor and the Symphony No. 5 of Prokofiev, described by the conductor Koussevitzky as "magnificent! It is yesterday, it is today, it is tomorrow."

Canberra Symphony's chief conductor Nicholas Milton will conduct the program.

For his recital on Sunday, August 13, McDonald will play the natural horn, an instrument with no valves, demanding that the player work extremely hard to place notes and produce clear articulation. He will play works by Krol, Beethoven, Dukas, Messiaen and Franz Strauss.

On Thursday, August 31, Alice Giles, harp, and Virginia Taylor, flute, will give a recital in conjunction with the exhibition, Dempsey's people at the National Portrait Gallery in the CSO Australian Series conceived by Matthew Hindson.

Playing to Canberra audiences, however, is not the only area of activity for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra's chief executive, Sarah Kimball, says: "Music is in all of us and we need to give more people the opportunity to experience it."

To this end the CSO's ActewAGL Meet the Music program collaborated with the Goulburn Strings Project in an outreach initiative through the Goulburn Regional Conservatorium – a project to give disadvantaged children in years 3 to 5 the chance to learn a string instrument. Dr Anita Collins from the University of Canberra and violin soloist Kirsten Williams, the associate concert master of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, worked on the project and CSO commissioned an original work, The Goulburn Concerto, from Sean Boyle, an Australian composer currently living in the US. This work was selected as a finalist for the 2017 APRA/AMCOS Art Music Awards in the category of Excellence in Music Education.

Still to come this year are events such as the final Llewellyn Series concert with young violinist Harry Bennetts as soloist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major, and also giving the final Recital Series concert; the popular Matinee Magic in October and Strings in the Salon – another concert on September 17 in the Monster Salon and Dining Room.

There are big plans for next year, too. On Thursday, August 10, the season launch event will take place at the National Portrait Gallery. Nicholas Milton and Matthew Hindson will reveal the 2018 program and cellist Julian Smiles will perform.