In an emotional apotheosis of QUO’s Chosen Family season, the orchestra unites with Empire City Men’s Chorus, which shares roots in the queer community. Together the groups perform late queer composer Conrad Susa’s arrangement of Brahms’s Four Serious Songs, which trace an arc from a struggle with the bitter prospect of death to a calm peace with mortality. ECMC and QUO also premiere a new work by Jeffrey Parola. Tchaikovsky thought of his Sixth Symphony as his finest work, dedicating it to a man he loved dearly. The symphony also grapples with death, pitting the brightest music of his oeuvre against his most devastating. Opening the concert is Viet Cuong’s Deciduous, a very personal work in which the composer seeks meaning in his creative after the loss of his father.