Conservatory features local black cellist Owen Young

Susan Daniels

When Jonathan McPhee was five, his parents took him to see “The Music Man,” his first show. The experience — and the title — proved prophetic. He’s been making music ever since.

As the renowned principal conductor for Boston Ballet, McPhee has enjoyed a sterling reputation in the local music scene since the late 1980s. But his influence transcends the city’s largest dance organization, falling squarely into the lap of some fine regional orchestras.

“I have a desire to recreate someone’s innermost thoughts into the present tense. And the conductor is the means to express that,” said McPhee, who will lead the Longwood Symphony Orchestra (LSO) Saturday at Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory in a concert featuring Camille Saint-Saëns “Cello Concerto No. 1” and Leonard Bernstein’s rarely performed “Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah).”

Performed by African American cellist Owen Young, the Saint-Saëns work is widely considered one of the greatest of all cello concerti. A mix of symphonic seriousness, salon prettiness and Parisian wit, Young called the concerto “a wonderfully accessible piece for the audience and for the musician.”

“Fun, light, with many different characters wrapped up into one, the ‘Cello Concerto’ is unique in that it has three movements, flowing from one to the next, without any breaks,” said Young, 42, a member of Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) since 1991.

“Written in 1872 when the composer was in his mid-30s, it is well constructed, and you can always hear the cello. It is never covered in any way,” he added.

Young is one of only a small handful of upper echelon black classical string musicians in the country, and is a popular figure in local musical circles for his playing, teaching and frequent charitable work.

“This is a wonderful vehicle for Owen — a terrific cellist — and one of the people I find myself looking at during a BSO concert,” said McPhee, a self-described “huge fan” of both the composer and guest artist.

“Young has a direct, communicative approach,” he continued. “The kind of personality that jumps out in a group.”

When developing the program, McPhee strove “to make sure everything harmonized together,” noting that Saint-Saëns’ concerto “is an emotionally reflective piece while Bernstein’s work is heavy drama.”

“‘Jeremiah’ is a masterpiece,” he continued. “It says so much about Bernstein and his thought process: his searching, his optimism, sadness, grief, reflections. All his emotions which come through so clearly,” explained McPhee, who has studied the work for 30 years but will conduct it for the first time this weekend.

Composed in 1943, “Jeremiah” was Bernstein’s first large-scale work. Inspired by his heritage, the piece opens with sounds of Sabbath chants and traditional melodies and incorporates a portion of the Biblical tale of Jeremiah, which describes the destruction of Israel and the suffering of its inhabitants. Janna Baty, a frequent performer in the Boston area with numerous classical organizations, will sing the piece.

As music director of LSO, a unique orchestra comprised of trained musicians from the Boston medical community whose performances raise funds for local medical charities, McPhee sees his mission as not only creating programs that turn uninitiated listeners on to classical music, but also “exploring pieces that the mainstream symphonic world is not performing.”

“LSO is a talented pool of avocational musicians, many of whom had the choice of going into music or medicine. What sets them apart is that they’re smart and driven, and this carries over into how they prepare and perform music,” said McPhee.

McPhee refers to “Jeremiah,” which runs about 25 minutes, as Bernstein’s “seminal piece,” and likens the “emotional content to the conductor’s lifelong search.”

“Why are we here? What about the relationships between people? He searched his whole life always questioning and pushing,” he said.