COEUR d'ALENE - Luke Osborn's hands swept over the violin like a wave.

His ironclad focus remained on the music as enchanting notes flooded from beneath his fingertips.

Felix Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64," is not a simple piece, but Luke handled it like a professional.

"I like to see people enjoy the music that I perform," he said during the Panhandle Symphony Orchestra's rehearsal at Lake City High School on Sunday. "I feel it's a blessing to them."

The talented 15-year-old will be performing the complex solo piece during the PSO concert in the Kroc Center on Thursday night. He said he has been working on the concerto for two years and rehearsing three months for this particular performance.

"I don't really get nervous playing in the orchestra as much as a solo," he said. "So for this concert, I'm pretty nervous."

Luke plays the viola, violin and piano. He regularly performs in the orchestra along with a few of his sisters. Five Osborn children are musicians in the orchestra, meaning about 10 percent of this high-caliber musical group is Osborns.

"One thing that's really cool is this orchestra is based on your ability, not your age," said proud dad Andy. "It truly is a community orchestra."

Andy and his wife Susanne, of Coeur d'Alene, have six girls and three boys. All of them play at least one instrument and the family even performs together sometimes.

"We have a house full of music, that's for sure," Andy said.

The Osborn children in the Panhandle Symphony Orchestra range in age from 10 to 18. Janae, 10, plays the cello for the orchestra. Thursday will be her first concert with the orchestra, but she said she's not too nervous because she's not the only cello player.

"I just like playing instruments," she said with a shy smile.

Andy said he sometimes rents classical CDs from the library and quizzes the kids on the composers.

"I'll play a classical piece and then I'll ask the children, 'OK, who's the composer? Over time, they've really learned to recognize a lot of the composers and a lot of their pieces," he said.

The Osborn children are homeschooled and incorporate music into their daily lives. Luke likes bluegrass and classical music, and he and his sister Katelyn, 18, perform with the Helena Symphony Orchestra in Montana about once a month.

An experienced musician since the age of 7, Luke admits that the Mendelssohn piece can still be quite tricky to master.

"There are certainly parts in it that are challenging to play on the violin like octaves and arpeggios," he said. "But mainly it's how to express it to the audience to make them enjoy it. That's the main hard part about this concerto."

Tim Sandford, Panhandle Symphony Orchestra conductor and band and orchestra director at Lake City High, said the young musicians have a positive impact on the orchestra.

"It's really cool to have a young child be able to look at the example of a 90-year-old musician, and know that they're going to get to enjoy that all their lives and be enriched by it," he said. "Our older musicians enjoy having the youth here too because the energy they provide us is great."

The Panhandle Symphony Orchestra will be performing a variety of music from swing to classical at the concert Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Kroc Center. It is free to the public. The Kroc Center is located at 1765 W. Golf Course Road in Coeur d'Alene.

Info: www.panhandlesymphonyorchestra.org