When he first took up piano at age 11, prompted by a mom who feared he was hanging out with a rough crowd, George Lopez found that he had a certain technical affinity for the notes.

As an adult, Lopez found the passion behind the notes. And the people behind those passions.

This Saturday, Lopez brings those passions to Concord, as he sits in with the Granite State Symphony Orchestra for its season opener. The GSSO's 14th season kickoff takes place Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium.

Lopez will offer his ebullient version of Chopin's "Piano Concerto No.1" as part of the GSSO's "Beethoven and Chopin" gala season launch. A favorite of audiences internationally for his lively, approachable style, Lopez returns to appear with conductor Robert Babb and the GSSO after conquering Mozart with the orchestra last year.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Belize before his family settled in Texas, Lopez found himself learning the scales at age 11 for two reasons: his mom and his grandmother's piano.

"My mother hated my friends - she yanked me of out baseball, even," recalled Lopez. "And I was to study piano because my grandmother had bought an old upright that she wanted to ship back to Central America, but it proved too costly to do that. So it stayed at our house."

While he initially resented the piano, Lopez soon found that he had a talent.

"It turned out I had a knack for reading music," said Lopez, who won his first award for playing piano by the time he was 14. "Even though at first I didn't want to be doing it, it came pretty easily to me."

Perhaps more importantly,

though, the young Lopez refused to see classical composers as gods on pedestals. That sensibility brought a freshness and accessibility to his performance, which have kept music interesting for him, as well as for appreciative audiences around the world.

"I think I've always made that conscious decision not to stereotype composers, who, after all, were guys writing to reflect their times," Lopez said. "You know, Beethoven was this unkempt, smelly guy living in Vienna. Bach was awful to his students, told them they were idiots. Mozart was the . . . king of innuendo in his writings. What is seen now as standoffish, classical was created by people living grounded lives, and somehow creating works that are spirited, sublime."

As a teen, Lopez found that the music gave him a key to locks that may have otherwise impeded his path.

"I think I may have been able to be a case study in psychology and breaking barriers," joked Lopez. "I was one of five minority kids in a predominantly white school in Texas. The music? It helped open doors for me, socially and otherwise."

Throughout his professional life, which has included chamber music collaborations, performances on Boston's WGBH radio, and guest musician appearances from New York to Switzerland to Holland to New Hampshire, Lopez (who makes the Granite State his home) has remained focused on accessibility and approachability. He lectures, champions music education and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy as well as the Manchester Community Music School.

Lopez remains a draw for both the typical classics fan and the more casual audience. That connection to the music and to the audience is not an accident.

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