The event will also include performances of Fauré's Pavane and Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, conducted by Xian Zhang.
The New Jersey Symphony returns to the iconic New Jersey Performing Arts Center stage for a powerful spring concert on both Thursday, April 16 and Saturday April 18, 2026. With a cast of dazzling soloists and the powerful and refined voices of the Montclair State University Chorale, this program is part of Xian Zhang's 10th anniversary 2025-26 season as the Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony.
Zhang conducts what is arguably one of the most revered pieces of music in the classical canon: Mozart's Requiem, a dramatic meditation on death that the composer did not finish before he passed. It is swansong full of fire, grace, and a transcendent prayer that the human spirit will live on. Mozart's Requiem was left maddeningly incomplete at his all-too-early death but is nevertheless his final masterpiece.
This all-choral program also features Fauré's Pavane and Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer. A slowly winding melody that started as a simple little five-minute piano solo, Fauré reimagined his Pavane for orchestra by adding the rich sound of a chorus, subsequently becoming his greatest hit. Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer comprises beautiful songs of a broken heart Mahler wrote as he took solace in nature after being spurned in love. Special guest bass-baritone Dashon Burton.
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