The Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s (PSO’s) 2023-2024 Season opens September 9-10 with Princeton-based composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s inspirational work Forward Into Light, inspired by women suffragists, and Henri Tomasi’s expressive Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra, performed by 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Steven Banks. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, one of the first full-length works by a Black composer to be performed by a major U.S. orchestra, completes the program.

Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov conducts the performances, which take place Saturday, September 9 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 10 at 4 p.m. at Richardson Auditorium. Sunday’s concert includes a pre-concert talk by Milanov at 3 p.m.

Banks was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2022 and was a chosen artist for WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab. He was the first saxophonist to be awarded First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions. Banks has appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Utah Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and Aspen Festival Orchestra, and has enjoyed working with such conductors as Franz Welser-Most, Xian Zhang, Nicholas McGegan, Rafael Payare, John Adams, Peter Oundjian, Jahja Ling, Matthias Pintscher, Alain Altinoglu, and Roderick Cox.

Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light was inspired by the American women suffragists Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frances E.W. Harper, Ida B. Wells, Zitkála-Šá, Mabel Lee Ping-Hua, and others who believed in equal rights for women. Tomasi’s two-movement saxophone concerto offers an intriguing dialogue between soloist and orchestra as well as a rich soundscape integrating diverse influences and musical styles. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony recalls orally transmitted African American folk songs, and is an important work of African American classical music.

Single tickets are now available for all 2023-2024 PSO orchestral concerts as well as the PSO Holiday POPS! Concert. Performances take place on Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. at Richardson Auditorium. To purchase, visit princetonsymphony.org or call 609.497.0020.