SAN MARCOS — Palomar Symphony steps onto “The Road to Joy” with its opener, “Joyful Collaborations,” on Oct. 18-19, featuring former professor Peter Gach in Bach’s Concerto No. 1 in D minor and setting the first stride toward Beethoven’s Ninth this spring.

The program showcases the orchestra’s full range, balancing color and contrast through three composers and one shared mood — joy. From Larsen’s summer soundscape to Bach’s dialogue between soloist and ensemble and Haydn’s buoyant finale, Ellen Weller said the performance captures the spirit of joy in many forms and defines the year ahead.

“I want them to feel joyous,” Weller said. “The last piece, they’re going to leave the concert hall humming, for sure. It’s just extremely joyful. I do want them to leave feeling upbeat and positive.”

Easing the audience in is concert opener, “Deep Summer Music,” by American composer Libby Larsen, featuring a trumpet solo and soothing melodies.

“It’s a luscious, colorful description of summer, like right before harvest in the plains states,” Weller said. “So just thinking about waves of wheat and all the colors of summer, of the brown hues and the ripeness. Her harmony is very ripe. It’s a very colorful piece.”

At the center of the program is pianist and former department chair Peter Gach, who taught at Palomar from 1981 to 2012 and served 15 years as artist-in-residence. He has appeared with the Palomar Symphony more than ten times over the years and this weekend marks his third performance of the Bach D minor concerto with the ensemble.

“From the beginning of my involvement with Palomar, I have regularly performed with the symphony,” Gach said. “Performing at Palomar with the orchestra on the Howard Brubeck Theatre stage feels like coming home.”

After that calm, expansive opening from Larsen, the tone shifts as Gach and the Bach concerto takes center stage. The piece offers a contrast of moods: a “forthright, get-it-done” opening, a reflective second movement with a delicate, interwoven piano line, and a final section that moves like a fiery dance, according to Weller.

“The original meaning of concerto, concertato, was David versus Goliath,” Weller said. “We have this one instrumentalist and the entire orchestra duking it out, and you really hear that in the third movement.”

As department chair, Gach spearheaded a fundraiser that purchased the program’s nine-foot Steinway piano, now inscribed with a plaque bearing his name.

“It’s called the Peter Gach Steinway,” she said. “So it’s extremely special to us to be able to have him play on that instrument.”

The finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 is the night’s earworm ear-worm, driving to a bright, folk-dance-like finish. The piece will leave more than just the audience enthused, Weller noted, saying one trumpet player just can’t stay still.

“She’s on the platform, and she’s bopping away in her seat. I’m going to get her a seat belt,” Weller said. “She can’t help it. It is that kind of music, where we’re having so much fun, it’s really hard to keep it together sometimes.”

With a mix of professionals, students and community players, Weller said the orchestra thrives on collaboration. She described working with Gach as both grounding and inspiring; his musicianship, she said, brings out the best in everyone.

“Every so often I will turn and we’re trying to hook up something in the moment, and we catch each other’s eyes, and we breathe together, and the music is like the exhale,” Weller said. “So personally, for me, those are great moments.”

The next stop on “The Road to Joy” season comes in December with “The Eternal Search for Joy,” which Weller described as a more contemplative program that invites listeners to reflect.

“We’re going to be doing the gorgeous Barber Adagio. So it’s a little more spiritual take on joy and the longing for joy,” Weller added.

From there, the journey continues through the spring semester and finishes in May with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, completing a performance Weller had prepared for April 2020 before it was canceled due to the pandemic.

“We were supposed to perform Beethoven’s Ninth in April of 2020. We had a little interruption then,” Weller said. “Finally, I feel brave enough, and we’ve come back enough.”

That sense of return extends beyond the music itself. The ensemble now includes more than 55 musicians, the largest roster Weller has conducted at Palomar since before the shutdown.

The “Joyful Collaborations” concert reflects the first aspect of the season’s overarching theme: rediscovering the joy of collaborating as musicians.

“Each concert has kind of a different take on aspects of joy,” she said. “So this one is collaboration, and how fun it is to make music together.”

For more information and tickets, visit the Palomar Performing Arts website.