Orpheus with vocalists Sasha Cooke and Nathan Gunn

7:00 p.m. Composer’s Chat with Augusta Read Thomas Croasdale Concert Orpheus launches its 40th anniversary gala year (and its 26th season at Lafayette) with the most iconic of all symphonic compositions—Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor—and the world premiere of Earth Echoes, a new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Augusta Read Thomas. Conceived as a tribute to Gustav Mahler, Earth Echoes borrows its inspiration from Mahler’s end-of-career masterpiece The Song of the Earth, and draws together works from 19 poets in a tapestry of meditations and texts. Among the finest American composers, Augusta Read Thomas has been praised as “breathtaking” where a “brainy brand of modernism reveals a lively, probing mind allied to a beating heart.” Sasha Cooke is a rising star in the world of opera and song, with a voice praised by The New York Times as “the outward purity of a Renaissance angel, with powerful sensual warmth.” Nathan Gunn is among America’s finest vocal dramatists. With kudos as diverse as a Grammy award (for Billy Budd) and a People magazine profile, Nathan Gunn has been an immediate hit in the world of opera, song, and musical theater with his “supple, honeyed baritone.” His work is also saluted by The New York Times: “He brings all kinds of excellence to his work: musical intelligence, crisp rhythmic delivery and sensitivity to the text, let alone impressive acting skills and daring physicality.”