The Lee University Symphony Orchestra will present its first concert of the year on Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. in the Conn Center.

Robert Bernhardt, artist-in-residence at Lee, will conduct this year’s program selections of Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 2; the “Evening Prayer and Dream Pantomine,” from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel; and selections from Bizet’s opera, Carmen.

The major work of the program is Symphony No. 2 of the American composer Alan Hovhaness, which he titled “Mysterious Mountain.” It was premiered in 1955 by the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and remains among the most famous and popular of Hovhaness’s works. Much of this three-movement symphony is atmospheric and attractively haunting, while painting broad structures of sound in a musical language that is unique to the composer.

The “Evening Prayer and Dream Pantomime” is an 8-minute excerpt from the opera Hansel and Gretel by the German composer Englebert Humperdinck. Written in 1893, the piece is a gorgeous mini tone-poem written in Wagnerian style. The excerpt is the scene in the opera where the children, lost and alone in the woods at night, sing their evening prayer to keep them safe.

The program will close with “Carmen Suite #1,” a selection of five movements with some of the most famous music from George Bizet’s 1875 opera, Carmen. Though Bizet died after only 30 performances of the opera, Carmen is recognized today as one of the most popular operas in the world.

Bernhardt conducts the Lee Symphony Orchestra following 19 years as music director and conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, where he continues to serve in the role of “conductor emeritus.”

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the School of Music at 423-614-8240 or email [email protected].