American Composer Missy Mazzoli, writing about her piece, These Worlds in Us, noted that “we accumulate worlds of intense memory within us.” Mozart must have had a headful of memories when he completed his clarinet concerto in 1791, a couple months before he died. It pairs grace and gravity in equal measure, with the clarinet hinting at a sense of sadness behind its beauty. In the summer of 1873, Brahms recalled a tune he had heard a few years before, attributed to Haydn, and composed his lovely variations based on it.

This concert highlights the music of three American composers. First up is Florence Price’s Ethiopia’s Shadow in America, which charts the arrival of Africans in America. Then, superstar soprano Julia Bullock sings a Sun Valley Music Festival commission, the world premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs based on traditional African American spirituals. And finally, Ms. Bullock will narrate Aaron Copland’s iconic Lincoln Portrait, featuring excerpts from President Lincoln’s speeches, in particular, the Gettysburg Address.

Welcome to the sunny side of Mahler. This symphony, his shortest, brightest, and most performed, leaves behind the brooding, tumultuous, and vast soundscapes of the others for blue skies and childlike innocence. The first symphony to end with a solo vocalist accompanied by orchestra, it builds to the final movement, which depicts “The Heavenly Life.” Soprano Julia Bullock joins the orchestra to sing these verses describing an innocent and serene view of heaven.

Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 was dedicated “to the victims of fascism and the war.” It’s likely a very autobiographical work that features a musical monogram, a means by which Shostakovich inserted his own voice into the musical narrative in a very under-the-radar way. The story is that, upon hearing it played for the first time by the Borodin Quartet, he buried his head in his hands and wept. In contrast, Mozart’s sunny String Quartet K. 465, nicknamed the “Dissonance” for its famous opening, moves quickly from darkness into light and remains there.