After a season of dark and dormant concert halls, Iris Orchestra welcomes back the sun. Mendelssohn’s String Symphony was written in a year the youthful Felix Mendelssohn’s family vacationed in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland. Initially dark, the symphony concludes optimistically, much like these past months. We feature two works, dark to bright, by Atlanta composer Carlos Simon: Elegy: A Cry from the Grave and The Warmth from Other Suns. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, music first sketched during a visit to the sunny southern countryside of that memorable Italian city.

• Virgil Thomson: The River Suite, Movement III. Soil Erosion and Floods; Movement IV. Finale

• Wolf: Italian Serenade

• Haydn: Symphony No. 101, Movement 2: Allegretto

• Berlioz: Overture, Beatrice and Benedict

• Stravinsky: Jeu de Cartes, 2nd Deal

• Weber: Overture, Oberon

• Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60, Movement I: Adagio—Allegro vivace

• Leshnoff: Rush

• Hartke: Landscapes with Blues, Movement III. Philamayork

  • with Richard Stoltzman, clarinet

• Adolphe: I Will Not Remain Silent

  • with Sharon Roffman, violin

• Zwilich: Rituals, Movement 4: Contests

  • with Nexus percussion ensemble

• Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, Movement II. Andante con moto

• Haydn: Symphony No. 101 in D Major, Hob. I:101, Movement IV. Finale. Vivace

• Puccini: I Crisantemi

• Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56, Movement III. Adagio

• Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551, Movement IV. Molto allegro

• Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man

• Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks, Movement III. Con moto