Music Director Laureate and longtime leader of the ASO, Robert Spano, returns to Symphony Hall and brings with him an old friend of the Orchestra, Emmy Award-winning composer Adam Schoenberg and his “Picture Studies,” a modern take on Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Says Schoenberg, “My main objective was to create an architectural structure that connected each movement to the next while creating an overall arc for the entire piece. Unlike Modest Mussorgsky, who set all of his movements to the work of Viktor Hartmann, my piece brings eight seemingly disparate works of art to musical life. The outcome is “Picture Studies,” a 26-minute work for orchestra based on four paintings, three photographs and one sculpture.”