A trinity of elegant melodies cross two centuries uniting George Li’s mesmerizing performance of Mozart’s radiant Piano Concerto No. 23 with the expressive Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky, and contemporary composer Alan Jay Kernis’ other-worldly Musica Celestis.

The lyrical violin concerto of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges is performed by young virtuoso Randall Goosby, a former winner of the Sphinx Concerto Competition for Black and Latinx artists. The program also celebrates the ground-breaking achievements of Zwilich, the first female to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, a sensual dreamscape by Debussy, and Mozart’s enchanting yet spirited symphony.

Composed as a memorial to his countryman, Arensky’s lyrical work reinvents a theme from Tchaikovsky’s “16 Songs for Children,” while fellow compatriot Shostakovich prophesied his chamber piece, colored by the WWII destruction of Dresden, would be his requiem. The program concludes with the yearning of Haydn’s dissonant and dramatic Symphony No. 44.

Double-threat violin and piano phenom Ray Ushikubo returns to perform Beethoven’s youthful, imaginative, first full-length orchestral piece, contrasted by the subdued resignation of Richard Strauss’ sunset years and Metamorphosen, and the pulsating Spanish rhythms of Turina’s tone poem.

Handel’s grandiose interlude music to his choral works is an audience favorite, while Mozart’s witty and blissful violin concerto puts BPO concertmaster Nikki Chooi through his paces. The extraordinary output of 20th-century American composer, conductor, and educator, Ulysses Kay, is represented when English hornist Anna Mattix undertakes his soulful, profoundly beautiful Pietà. The amusing and high-spirited Divertissement of French composer Jacques Ibert completes the program.