From Wheeling Symphony: Our March Masterworks program features composers spanning four centuries, from Mozart in the 18th century to contemporary composer Clarice Assad.

The concert begins in celebration of Music in Our Schools Month, as the Wheeling Symphony Youth Orchestra joins the WSO on stage for a side-by-side performance of Sibelius’s Finlandia. Beloved by students and professional musicians alike, this work also serves as this season’s Musician’s Choice selection, nominated by WSO Principal Timpanist Jacob Gutierrez.

We then turn to Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, a vibrant collection of seven folk tunes from Transylvania. Our contemporary offering comes from Clarice Assad, whose music the WSO has programmed nearly every season over the past five years. For this performance, we welcome trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden for Assad’s Bohemian Queen, inspired by the art of American painter Gertrude Abercrombie.

The concert closes with Mozart’s beloved Symphony No. 40, one of his most recognizable and dramatic works. Of the 41 symphonies attributed to Mozart, it is one of only two written in a minor key.