The Stanford Summer Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Summer Chorus wrapped their summer season with two performances of Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" at Bing Concert Hall on Friday, July 31 and Saturday, Aug. 1, bringing a rarely heard choral symphony to the Stanford campus.

The program paired professional soloists with student musicians for the "symphony-cantata," a hybrid work combining three orchestral movements with a nine-movement cantata for soloists and chorus, according to the event listing on Patch. Mendelssohn composed it in 1840 for a Leipzig festival marking the 400th anniversary of moveable type, and it was the first major symphony after Beethoven's Ninth to combine orchestra and chorus.

Paul Phillips, the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies at Stanford, conducted the Mendelssohn. Phillips returned to the podium for the summer season after a two-quarter sabbatical during winter and spring 2026, when music lecturer John Eells led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia, according to The Stanford Daily.

The soloist roster drew from major opera houses.

Soprano Esther Tonea, a former Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, won the Metropolitan Opera's Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition in 2022, chosen from 1,100 applicants. Tenor Chance Jonas-O'Toole spent two seasons as an ensemble member at Deutsche Oper Berlin from 2023 to 2025 and is now back with San Francisco Opera. Bay Area soprano Jennie Yukyung Byun rounded out the trio.

The evening opened with an overture by Ethel Smyth, the English composer and suffragette who became the first female composer granted a damehood. Rafael Ornes conducted the Summer Chorus in "Heavenly Home," a choral work arranged by Shawn Kirchner, before Phillips took the podium for the Mendelssohn.

Both concerts began at 7:30 p.m. in the 842-seat hall, where every seat sits within 75 feet of the conductor. The concerts were presented by Stanford's Department of Music as part of its academic programming.

The performances marked the final event of the Stanford Summer Symphony's 2026 season.