PORTLAND — On Tuesday, Nov. 1 the Portland Symphony Orchestra will present works by American composers Mason Bates and Samuel Barber, and Austrian composer Gustav Mahler in a concert inspired by Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and features guest soprano Sarah Jane McMahon with Robert Moody conducting.

The evening’s program opens with “Rusty Air in Carolina,” written by Bates, a friend and former student of Moody. Bates, recognized as one of America’s most important contemporary composers, is composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This piece is rooted in Moody’s and Bates’ past and was originally composed in honor of Moody’s appointment as music director for the Winston-Salem Symphony.

Set in the South, “Rusty Air” is filled with the sounds of Southern summers: katydids and old-time blues. “Rusty Air” is followed by Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” The text for this piece comes from the prologue of James Agee’s memoir, “A Death In the Family.” The music sets the scene of a summer day as experienced by a child, and is filled with foreshadowing of a tragedy.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 concludes the program. This is the most frequently performed of Mahler’s symphonies and is centered on a single song, “Das himmlische Leben (Heaven’s Life),” woven throughout the first three movements. The song, a young boy’s thoughts on Heaven, is sung in its entirety by a soprano in the fourth movement.

McMahon recently sang a Gala concert opposite Placido Domingo on his newly dedicated stage in New Orleans, and made her debut at the Wiener Konzert Haus and Bremen’s Die Glocke in their concert productions of “Candide.” A frequent guest artist at New York City Opera, she performed Mabel in “The Pirates of Penzance.”

Concert-goers are invited to a Concert Conversation at 6:15 p.m. in the Rehearsal Hall with PSO principal clarinet Tom Parchman. A question-and-answer session will follow the performance.

Tickets, from $20 to $70, are available through PortTIX.com, by calling 842-0800 or at the box office at 20 Myrtle St. between noon and 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.