Are symphonies an endangered species? Apparently, the thought leaders at the Aspen Music Festival and School think so. To help, they’ve started a five-season series of First Symphonies commissioned from composers they deem major. Gemini 3 Pro finds this very exciting. “The Aspen Music Festival’s initiative to commission first symphonies is brilliant because it addresses a modern reality: writing a symphony is a massive undertaking that requires significant funding, a willing orchestra, and guaranteed rehearsal time—things that are hard for emerging composers to secure.” Well. Johannes Brahms famously held back until he was 43 before plunging into his first symphony, and he wasn’t just ticking off a box. “You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us”—“him” being Beethoven. Since Brahms, the composers Bruckner and Mahler, to name just two, have joined him in the giant ranks. Shouldn’t it be the creative fire that drives artists to enter the lists? Aspen’s first new symphonist is Matthew Aucoin, whose unquestionable talent skews heavily operatic. And what do you know? His “Symphony No. 1,” entitled Two Thresholds with the “symphony” label in parens, features a “major vocal part” for the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Text? None announced. How would it be off-base to call the piece a cantata? Evidently, it leaves space on the first half of the evening’s bill for Antonín Dvořák’s surefire Carnival Overture. Augustin Hadelich, the guy who really sells tickets, shows up after intermission to play Samuel Barber’s gorgeous Violin Concerto. Then the Rumanian-born Cristian Măcelaru wraps up the evening with Georges Enescu’s rip-snorting Rumanian Rhapsody. —Matthew Gurewitsch