DEPRIVED OF HIS JUST DESERTS by schedule conflicts last year, San Francisco Opera music director Donald Runnicles is finally getting what's his by right come the evening of May 24.

At the conclusion of the Crowden Music Center's blowout 25th anniversary concert in UC Berkeley's Hertz Hall, they'll pass the baton to Runnicles to put an anticipated critical mass of 100-plus musicians of all ages — just about the biggest pickup band ever — through a romping, rollicking rendition of Leroy Anderson's "Fiddle Faddle."

As its title denotes, the 3½-minute work is driven by furiously whirling strings, accomplishing just the sort of madcap merriment the late violinist and school founder Anne Crowden, who made an annual ritual of conducting it herself, liked to send audiences home with. Runnicles, who shares Crowden's Scottish heritage and was a longtime friend and supporter, won the right to take over in an auction at the 2006 school gala, where the bidding, by all accounts, was as fast and fierce as the piece itself.

The May 24 concert is attracting friends, alumni and former associates from all over the country and beyond, many to particpate onstage. Conductor George Cleve, for instance, has been diverting a little attention from organizing his upcoming Midsummer Mozart Festival to help rehearse the Crowden Orchestra for a world premiere performance of "Collected Songs," a commissioned piece by

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Crowden alum Matthew Cmiel. At concert time, however, he will hand the baton to young Cmiel himself, now a student at the Curtis Institute coming from Philadelphia for the occasion.

Among the professional musicians who will perform are the renowned cellist (and Juilliard faculty member) Bonnie Hampton, violinists Nathan Olson and Karla Donehew, pianist Julie Steinberg and cellist Deirdre Cooper, whose very special connection is that she is the founder's daughter.

The celebration is the high point of a very active year at the Crowden Center, which sprang to life in a Berkeley church basement in 1983, with a mere 11 students, and graduated to its current location in the old Jefferson School at 1475 Rose St. 15 years later. Now a nonprofit musical hub with deep ties to the Bay Area, it consists of a school that offers academic and music instruction to 85 fourth-through-eighth-graders and the Center for Music in the Community, which serves more than 1,000 students a year through outreach efforts in schools and extensive after-school, weekend and summer programs.

The Center also lends support to other East Bay performing arts groups, providing rehearsal space for Berkeley Opera, the Berkeley Symphony, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and several youth orchestras.

In addition to Runnicles and Cleve, Crowden counts a long list of high-profile friends and supporters in the music world. Among them is Berkeley's Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams, a proud Crowden dad in whose name a Young Composers program was launched there last month with $250,000 in seed money. Serving with Adams on the Crowden music advisory board are Hampton, classical double bassist Gary Karr and Sir Simon Rattle, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Famous musicians who have dropped in to visit, often conducting workshops for students, have included Midori, Yo Yo Ma and Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg, all within the past few years.

The program for the 25th anniversary concert includes, in addition to "Fiddle Faddle" and the Cmiel world premiere, Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 2, Brahms' Sonata No. 1 in G major, Schubert's Quintet in C major and Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3. It begins at 7 p.m. in Hertz Hall, off College and Bowditch on the Berkeley campus. Reserved tickets are $25 and include a post-concert reception with the artists. General admission tickets are $15. Contact 510-559-6910 or www.crowden.org.

OPERA APPROACHES: We have one sad and one happy item to note about San Francisco Opera's upcoming summer season, which launches at 8 p.m. June 3 with "Das Rheingold," the first installment of a new Wagner "Ring" Cycle, and also includes productions of Handel's "Ariodante" (debuting 2 p.m. June 15) and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" (8 p.m. June 17). To be regretted, perhaps, is that Polish powerhouse contralto Ewa Podles, whose voice nearly blew us out of Zellerbach Hall when she gave a recital there a few years ago, has withdrawn from "Ariodante" due to illness. She will be replaced in the role of the scheming Polinesso by Italian contralto Sonia Prina, who will be making both her S.F. Opera and her United States debuts.

On the other hand, we're quite happy to alert you that Opera at the Ballpark, the free live simulcasting of a War Memorial production on the gigantic digital scoreboard at AT&T Park, is heading to second base with the 8 p.m. June 20 production of "Lucia." If you were among the nearly 15,000 opera (and freebie) lovers in the stands and on the field for last fall's production of "Samson and Delilah," you already know how much fun it can be to take your opera in the open air and with popcorn. Be smart and register in advance, though, as early birds get let into the stadium first for best seating. Go to www.sfopera.com/giants.

Tuned In appears every other Friday in TimeOut Weekend. Reach Sue Gilmore at sgilmore@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-977-8482.