Jacaranda, the classical music series known for presenting new and rarely heard music, will culminate its 2011-12 season on Sunday, May 20th at 6 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica with the first large-scale U.S. performance of counter-culture icon Terry Riley’s legendary “Olson III,” and Lou Harrison’s Suite for Violin, Strings, Piano, Celesta and Two Harps.

Riley and Harrison are known as California musical mavericks.

Riley’s landmark single-page composition, “In C” (1964), was featured in Jacaranda’s inaugural concert nearly 10 years ago. The world premiere of its aggressive successor, “Olson III,” triggered as calamitous a near-riot as any in music history. Riley, beloved as the father of minimalism, described its “hard core repetition” as a “form of ritual,” which elicited catcalls, boos, whistles and door-slams from the unsuspecting Swedish audience who witnessed its 1967 premiere in Stockholm. All of this was broadcast live and recorded by Swedish radio. 25 years passed before a second large-scale version of the intense work was performed in France in 2002.

Nearly 100 singers and instrumentalists will appear Sunday in the first U.S performance to replicate the 77-year-old composer’s original intentions.

The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (LACC) will combine with members of the Jacaranda Youth Chamber Orchestra and Jacaranda Festival Orchestra & Chorus to perform the work.

LACC first participated with Jacaranda in a concert performance of the Five Knee Plays from “Einstein on the Beach” by Philip Glass in 2009. Says LACC director Anne Tomlinson: “Jacaranda opens up exciting new possibilities for us. We would not have been able to participate with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2011 performing Mr. Glass’ music for the film, ‘Powaqqatsi,’ without Jacaranda.”

Violinist Alyssa Park, who in 1990 established an international reputation as the youngest prizewinner in the history of the Tchaikovsky International Competition, was featured on Jacaranda’s 2008 concert to inaugurate The Broad Stage in Santa Monica. She played “Double Concerto for Violin, Cello & Gamelan” by Harrison, the subject of a new documentary by Eva Soltes that premiered this March San Francisco.

Opening Jacaranda’s Sunday concert, Park will play a version of a concerto that the composer had made in 1974 with violinist Richard Dee, “Suite for Violin & American Gamelan.” Finding the heavy gamelan cumbersome, Harrison authorized Kerry Lewis to arrange a new version. Michael Tilson Thomas led the 1993 premiere of “Suite for Violin, Strings, Piano, Celesta and Two Harps.”

Tickets for the Sun., May 20, 6 p.m. concert are available at www.jacarandamusic.org, or by calling 1-800-595-4TIX. Purchased online, tickets are $35 general and $15 for students, or at the door the evening of the concert: $40 general, $20 for students.

Jacaranda, with a motto of “music at the edge,” is a series of intimate concert ventures into the realm of new and rarely heard classical music “designed to awaken curiosity, passion and discovery.” Founded in 2003 by arts impresario Patrick Scott and conductor/organist Mark Alan Hilt, Jacaranda produced a series of 11 concerts this season in Santa Monica that featured current and rising stars in the world of classical music. www.jacarandamusic.org.