Barber’s Adagio & Elgar’s Enigma

Guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, former music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, opens this concert with Perú Negro, a piece he commissioned from star composer Jimmy López that is an exciting homage to Afro-Peruvian music. Virtuoso flautist Jasmine Choi, with a tone “glowing like gold [that] resonates like pearls” (Nikkei Daily Newspaper) performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Flute Concerto before the Columbus Symphony ends the evening with two popular 20th-century works: Samuel Barber’s heart-rending Adagio for Strings has become synonymous with moments of national reflection and catharsis, while Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” is a musical cryptogram depicting the composer’s inner circle, including the elegantly moving “Nimrod.”