Meadows Symphony Orchestra opens the season with “New Shapes,” a concert featuring songs by John Adams, Gustav Mahler and Mozart.

Led by conductor Paul Phillips, the orchestra is made up of talented students who are part of the undergraduate, graduate and artist certificate programs in the Meadows School of the Arts, many of whom have won prestigious awards across the nation.

Phillips, who has been part of the Meadows Music Division for more than a decade, has also served as assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra.

The concert will feature internationally acclaimed baritone and SMU alum, Donnie Ray Albert. Albert, who received his master’s of music degree from SMU, has performed with the opera companies of Cincinnati, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C., Houston, Miami, Atlanta, Austin, New Orleans, Baltimore, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Vancouver, Berlin, Giessen, Bordeaux, Köln, Bregenz, Milan, Mannheim and Hamburg.

The performance will include pieces from three different centuries. The concert opens with Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer,” written in 1885, followed by Mozart’s renowned Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter,” written in 1788, and concludes with Adams’ “Common Tones in Simple Time,” written in 1979.

The concert will run Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. in Caruth Auditorium in the Meadows School of the Arts. Tickets are $7 for students, faculty and staff, $13 for adults and $10 for seniors.