Greenville Symphony Orchestra will kick off its concert season Saturday in a fashion unlike any in its 81-year history.

The musicians will be sharing their talents and their instruments with visually impaired young people.

Keystone Kids of Keystone Blind Association will attend an afternoon rehearsal, get a feel for the instruments and then have special seating for the evening concert in William A. Passavant Center at Thiel College.

GSO President Judy Eckler said the students will be allowed to handle the instruments under the supervision of orchestra members, who will demonstrate how they are played.

“The students will get one-on-one sessions with the musicians,” she said. “They will get to get an idea of what the instruments are like.”

Faith Ann Miller, GSO treasurer, said conductor Michael Gelfand will do a short session on conducting and musical careers, and snacks will be provided by Jamestown Lions Club.

“As far as we know, no other orchestra has done this with the visually impaired,” she said.

Mrs. Eckler and Jonathan Fister, president and CEO of Keystone Blind, said the idea originated from a grant-writing seminar at Community Library of the Shenango Valley in Sharon, where staff members from both organizations met and talked.

“Our guy got in a conversation with a gal representing the symphony, and they started talking about the things we’ve done within each organization,” Fister said. “We’ve taken our children to Disney World, we’ve had a trip to Niagara Falls, and they started talking about how the sensory experience was really important to blind children, and that drifted into an invitation to bring the kids to the symphony.

“The initial offer was to just bring the kids to a concert,” he said. “It gradually grew into a more complex experience. We wanted to give them the opportunity to touch the instruments, learn the sounds each instrument makes, learn the layout of the symphony, sit in on a rehearsal, and then later in the evening, on the performance. We wanted to show them how all of these instruments combined to make the sound the symphony makes.”

The afternoon experience is intended to enhance the young people’s enjoyment of the evening performance.

Fister said that unlike sighted concert-goers, the blind can enjoy the sound, but not the visual aspects of the performance, such as seeing that orchestra members sit in the shape of a horseshoe.

The Keystone Kids hail from Mercer and the five surrounding counties served by Sharon-based Keystone Blind.