A cornucopia of music will offer delights for young and old at 2 p.m. June 9 when the Thames Valley Music School Youth Orchestra holds a special free concert at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook.

Where else could you hear Beethoven alongside tunes by Kanye West, or the classical tango master Piazzola next to the Korean pop sounds of BTS?

“It was inspired by the students,” said Thames Valley conductor Evan Meccarello.

Meccarello, in a conference call, said he asked students about the types of music they enjoyed, and then put together a program based partly on their interests. The piece fusing BTS’s K-pop tunes Meccarello actually composed himself, in collaboration with musicians online, with the makeup of his orchestra in mind.

And make no mistake, though this is a youth orchestra of some 50 musicians between eighth and 12th grades, these kids can play. All players — coming from Griswold to Mystic to Old Lyme — must pass a rigorous audition and pay tuition or win a scholarship to participate (for information, visit thamesvalleymusicschool.org).

“These students are playing at all-state or all-regional orchestra levels,” Meccarello said.

And the music for this concert will surely challenge them, given the wide variety of styles and flavors — not to mention a condensed rehearsal schedule after the orchestra’s annual spring concert just last month.

“The collection of different styles is what this program is all about,” Meccarello said.

He added that mixing genres is not without precedent. In Beethoven’s day, he said, it was not unusual to hear popular music between the main musical courses, and here the melange of Kanye and Beethoven — what has been dubbed as Yeethoven — offers comparisons of not only the musical styles but the similar mercurial temperaments of the composers as well.

This is the 15th anniversary of the Thames Valley Music School Youth Orchestra but the 40th anniversary of the Connecticut College-based music organization itself, currently led by executive director Simon Holt.

Holt said the Old Saybrook concert is part of an outreach effort to bring in more students from the Old Lyme-Guilford-Madison area. He said Thames Valley used to have a satellite program at Lyme-Old Lyme High School that it is hoping to reconstitute.

“We are trying to get our name out,” Holt said, “trying to break out of New London County.”

In addition to this high-level orchestra, Thames Valley runs two other youth ensembles for intermediate and beginning students. A grant the school hopes to get next year would allow it to offer some scholarships for deserving students, Holt added.

“People who want to do this can find a way to do it,” he said. “We really encourage families to consider sending their kids to audition with the orchestra.”

Meccarello, who is winding up his second year as conductor of the youth orchestra, said it is not unusual for students to drive 45 minutes to an hour to enjoy this level of training. Rehearsals are at Evans Hall at Connecticut College, and players can often get coaching from professional musicians conversant with specific instruments.

“Its been wonderful,” Meccarello said. “My experience in youth orchestras as a violinist is really what inspired me to become a conductor. It’s an opportunity to share the world of music with our students.”

l.howard@theday.com