Submitted photo Youngstown Symphony Orchestra concludes its 2025-26 season with a concert Friday at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Erik Ochsner is sending a message with the works he is programming in his first season as music director and conductor of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra.

Friday’s season finale at Stambaugh Auditorium will close with Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 op. 29, known as “The Inextinguishable.”

“The Nielsen is a little bit tongue in cheek,” Ochsner said. “Last year people were confused and saying, ‘The Youngstown Symphony is going under.’ No, it’s not. On the February program, I said, ‘We are a fantastic symphony orchestra,’ and we had the Berlioz symphony ‘Fantastique.’ And we’re not going anywhere. We are inextinguishable, so we’re having Nielsen’s ‘Inextinguishable’ symphony.”

Nielsen also is a Danish composer, and Ochsner — who had dual citizenship in the United States and Finland — said the work fits the autobiographical theme of the two Masterworks concerts of his inaugural season as music director. And it’s not the only piece on Friday programmed with that theme in mind.

“When I got the job, we had only four concerts this season. Matt Pagac (the orchestra’s chief executive and operating officer) said, ‘Hey, why don’t you make two of them sort of biographical, some connection to you that allows us to get to know you better,'” Ochsner said. “Being someone who enjoys some modern music, I wanted to include a living composer. I wanted to include a female composer, and I wanted to include a living female Scandinavian composer.”

A work that checked all those boxes is “ARCHORA,” a 2022 composition by Anna Thorvaldsdottir of Iceland. It’s a moody, atmospheric piece that Ochsner admitted might not be for everyone.

“It is difficult for the orchestra, difficult for the conductor, and difficult for the audience, but it’s something we need to do,” he said. “We need to be playing modern pieces of music to find out what our favorite pieces are going to be next year or in 25 years. And I’ve really fallen in love with this piece. It’s like a soundscape.”

Ochsner said the work plays with the ideas of consonance (harmonious sounds) and dissonance (clashing sounds).

“Half the orchestra is going (one way), and the other half is going (another way), and finally the other half goes (in unison). Everyone’s playing the same note, and it’s sort of like you can take a deep breath. Life is good. Resolution has been achieved. And I just think it’s magical.

“I beg you, give me 19 minutes of your life, and don’t judge it, just experience it. I have not heard this in a concert hall, but I think it will be more magical in a concert hall than you can even imagine listening to a recording.”

Joining “ARCHORA” in the first half of the program is Modest Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina Prelude: Dawn on the Moskva River” to open the concert and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Calm Sea & Prosperous Voyage” before intermission.

“The other two pieces on the program are straight-up classical works,” he said. “They deserve to be played. They’re both beautiful. And I’m sort of winking and saying they’re also sort of a hashtag for my future. ‘Dawn on the Moskva River’ of Khovanshchina by Mussorgsky is sort of a dawn on the new era of Erik Ochsner, music director. And ‘Calm Sea & Prosperous Voyage,’ well, we hope that we will have a calm sea with the orchestra in a new era and a prosperous voyage.”

Following the concert Friday will be a reception, where Ochsner will announce the 2026-27 season. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise in advance, but he said the upcoming season was shaped by what he’s learned this season and from his past experiences as a guest conductor with the YSO.

“We are still in a little bit of an audience-building phase. We found out that films sell very well in Youngstown, and we will continue to do film projects (a screening of a movie with live orchestral accompaniment). We are finding that there are people who enjoy my a little-bit-out-of-the-norm programming, and we’ve also heard some people say that we would like to have a little more traditional programming.

“I’m trying to meet people in the middle … We’re trying to be a good member of our community and serve our community and bring the type of programming that people want to hear. But also it’s our responsibility as the steward of classical music to bring what we believe audiences should hear. I referred to this as monitoring the musical health of our audience and the musical health of our orchestral players.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Inextinguishable” — Youngstown Symphony Orchestra with Erik Ochsner, conductor

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Stambaugh Auditorium, 1000 Fifth Ave., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $20 to $65 and are available at the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office, online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.