The Oregon East Symphony opens the season with a concert on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2:30 p.m. at the Vert Auditorium in Pendleton.

PENDLETON — The Oregon East Symphony opens its 2023-2024 concert season on Sunday, Nov. 5.

The performance begins at 2:30 p.m. at the Vert Auditorium, 480 SW Dorion Ave., with a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite.”

Maestro Beau Benson will lead the symphony in its performance of the ballet suite based on the popular Slavic folktale. Also to be performed is Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s “Moldau,” a tone poem depicting the Vltava River in the Czech Republic.

The concert will also feature the Pacific Northwest premiere of American female composer Radie Britain’s 1970 revision of her “Cactus Rhapsody,” said J.D. Kindle, OES executive director.

Born in 1899, Britain was a Texas-born pianist, writer, music educator and composer of symphonic music which incorporated musical idioms from the southwestern United States. Kindle said parts of her rarely heard “Cactus Rhapsody” were specially prepared for OES by the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in Philadelphia.

The Sunday concert also features the Oregon East Symphony Youth Orchestra joining the adult symphony for a side-by-side of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance” from his ballet “El amor brujo.”

The OES Youth Orchestra is an intermediate-level preparatory ensemble under the direction of Zach Banks, OES education director. This concert is the first time the Youth Orchestra has performed with the adult symphony since 2016.

Through a season sponsorship from the Pendleton Foundation Trust, the Oregon East Symphony will again be offering free general admission to all of its symphonic concerts this season. Free tickets are for any unreserved floor-level seat and can be picked up from downtown Pendleton businesses and organizations that are listed on the OES website.

For more information about the symphony, to purchase reserved seats and find out where to obtain free tickets, visit www.OregonEastSymphony.org, call 541-276-0320 or visit the office at 345 SW Fourth St. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.