This weekend he'll perform with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, taking on Elgar's Violin Concerto, a bruiser of a work that is as gorgeous as it is long and demanding.

"It's not a piece I knew well until five or six years ago," says Ehnes, "at which point I came to it with the zeal of a convert."

At 32, the violinist says, amusingly, that "I've been so much more passionate about it because I've lived so much of life without it."

In his 20s he'd played and loved the major works, but for him, "Elgar was something new, and in order to learn it properly, you have to spend so much time knowing it."

It had escaped his notice because it's not a piece that gets much play outside the United Kingdom, where native son Elgar is naturally revered.

Ehnes, a Canadian who now lives in Florida, grew up in an environment where the arts thrived. "My father was a trumpet teacher and mother was a dancer and had a ballet school, so I was surrounded by people in arts."

As a tot he coveted the violin (he recalls Itzhak Perlman on "Sesame Street" as an influence) and thereafter received excellent instruction. "I had developed a particular love for Mozart, Beethoven and Prokofiev -- but my parents didn't listen to a lot of Elgar."

He was delighted and perhaps a bit sur- prised that the Memphis Symphony Orchestra requested the Elgar.

"I'm not asked to do it a lot outside the UK, but it's close to my heart," he says. "It's a major undertaking for violinist and orchestra, and requires a commitment from everybody involved."

The large-scale work runs long; Ehnes' recording on the Onyx label clocks in at almost 49 minutes. "Pacing is difficult and crucial to its success," he says, "and to keep the audience really wrapped up in it is no easy thing. But when it comes off well, it's one of the most exciting pieces."

Ehnes is prolific with 20 recordings, and has been honored with three Juno awards, plus being named Young Artist of the Year at the 2002 Cannes Classical Awards.

The program also includes Joan Tower's "Made in America," a patriotic piece commissioned by a consortium of 65 orchestras, and Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring." Memphis Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor David Loebel will conduct. -- www.memphissymphony.org