What do the movie Tár and the Netflix show Wednesday have in common? Key characters playing Elgar’s cello concerto! Hailed as Elgar’s final masterpiece, it’s a gorgeous but not particularly happy work (would Wednesday Addams play anything remotely happy?) influenced by the devastating impact of World War I on the composer’s psyche. Gautier Capuçon returns to Sun Valley to deliver this hauntingly beautiful music. Stephanie Childress opens the concert with Tumblebird Contrails, a piece the composer Gabriella Smith says was “inspired by a single moment sitting in the sand at the edge of the ocean, listening to the hallucinatory sounds of the Pacific, watching a pair of ravens playing in the wind.”

Fans of Beethoven may bristle at the suggestion, but there’s a sizable contingent that views Brahms’s Fourth Symphony as the very embodiment of the symphonic ideal. Precisely constructed, it displays Brahms’s absolutely mastery of the form. Filled with beautiful tunes and waves of romantic emotion, it also remains steadfastly earnest, even austere. Brahms recognized this quality, writing from his mountain retreat near Vienna that his symphony “tastes of the climate here. The cherries don’t ripen in these parts; you wouldn’t eat them!” Pay particular attention to the finale, a masterful homage to one of Bach’s chaconnes—a stately dance with 32 variations over a repeating bass line. It’s brilliant.

Written in the last year of his life, Schubert’s String Quintet is often considered his greatest (and was his last) chamber work. He chose to add a cello, rather than a viola, to the traditional string quartet, and the result is a wonderful exploration of the instrument’s capabilities. At times the second cello reinforces the bass line, at other times it soars into its highest range, and at one point the two cellos play a lovely duet. The great cellist Gautier Capuçon joins with several Festival Orchestra musicians to bring this magnificent piece to life.

Conductor Jacomo Bairos returns to Sun Valley (he previously conducted The Villalobos Brothers in 2021) with a program inspired by Latin dance music. Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble, Bairos is known for merging classical music with a wide range of styles, composers, and artists. Praised as “sonically spellbinding” by Billboard, Bairos and Nu Deco have released 14 albums. For Pops Night, Bairos has assembled a program featuring jazzy takes on recognizable tunes as well as impossible-to-resist Latin dance songs that will have you tapping your feet or perhaps dancing in the aisles (and on the lawn!).