Considered one of the most gifted modern composers of her generation, the Brooklyn-based Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music that is in conversation with the past. Her latest work, Mass for the Endangered, is six movements, and is a meditation on the traditional Catholic mass, featuring a libretto by the poet Nathaniel Bellows. “I wanted to open the gates in my mind between centuries-old European vocal traditions and those of more recent American vernacular persuasion,” Snider has said of this piece, “and write from a place where differing thoughts about line, text, form, and expression could co-exist.” Mass for the Endangered will have its New York premiere at the Green-Wood Cemetery, with performances at twilight and by moonlight. —Sophie Kemp