By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

It happens every year. As Labor Day looms and worried eyes turn toward the Gulf, rejuvenation irrepressibly springs within.

In Southern childhoods, autumn becomes our time of new beginnings. New energy from cooler temps, a new school year, new colors on the trees, a new State Fair and the widespread excitement accompanying the South’s great cultural pandemic, college football season.

Even now, without traditional autumn weather or classes, adults still feel a stir.

The same can be said of Mobile’s arts season. Fall is when things really begin to percolate again, when life returns to the stage and gallery.

Among the fresh incarnations greeting arts denizens is an offering blending genres within one fine arts institution to bring us a new variant.

The arcade and lobby of the Saenger Theatre are turned into gallery space as the Mobile Symphony pairs with Cathedral Square Gallery on Sept. 8 at 8 p.m. to breath full life into “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

The title is derived from an 1874 work by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky that headlines the evening. The Mussorgsky piece was written in response to the death of friend Viktor Hartmann, an architect and artist felled at 39 by an aneurism. A posthumous show of more than 400 of Hartmann’s works at the Academy of the Fine Arts at St. Petersburg inspired Mussorgsky who then churned out the musical masterpiece just a month-and-a-half later.

The suite of ten pieces represents a tour through ten of Hartmann’s works.

Mobile Symphony Executive Director Stephen Hedrick approached Cathedral Square Gallery’s Linda Hall-Tenhundfeld with the collaboration idea and she passed it on to coordinator Judy Aronson.

“I think we have all 44 of our artists in there,” Aronson said. “Everyone was very excited about it.”

Aronson and crew also supplied inspiration. “We played the Mussorgsky piece all the time while we working on it. Everyone really kind of fed off that.”

The paintings will be for sale, of course with a sizable portion of proceeds going to the symphony.

More of the artists’ work can be viewed when a reception at Cathedral Square Gallery follows the performance. A pre-performance soiree for ticket-holders will also be at the gallery on Dauphin Street.

For Mobile Symphony Musical Director and Conductor Scott Speck, this event also took on a personal tone. While recently studying in St. Petersburg, he journeyed to Mussorgsky’s grave with a score of Pictures At an Exhibition in hand.

The scheduling of this show was natural. “This is the third year of a three-year ‘Creation’ series at the Mobile Symphony,” Speck said. “The first year was called ‘The Harmony of All Creation,’ and the music we chose was all about nature. The second year was ‘Stories of Creation,’ and many of our pieces depicted ancient creation myths. This final year is called ‘The Creative Force,’ and many of the programs are concerned with the process of creation itself-including two world premieres that are being written for us later in the year. Pictures at an Exhibition is the perfect introduction to this theme.”

There’s more on the bill than Mussorgsky. “Besides the obvious connection to painting, we’re also playing the Roman Carnival Overture, which comes from the Berlioz opera Benvenuto Cellini, about the great Florentine sculptor,” Speck said. “And the Korngold violin concerto is full of themes that Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote in his lush, swashbuckling movie scores. So it’s one kind of creative process after another.”

The timing is prime. “Every season fills me with anticipation, and this one more than most,” Speck said. “The orchestra is firing on all cylinders and the excitement onstage is really palpable.”

“Our audience is enthusiastic and growing-we’ve had to add Sunday performances in additional to the traditional Saturday nights and we’re performing challenging pieces that show off the MSO’s abilities as never before.”

Speck’s anticipated highlights of the coming season? “I’m especially looking forward to Pictures at an Exhibition,” he said, “Shostakovich Symphony no. 5, Olga Kern’s return with Rachmaninoff’s Second piano concerto, Mahler’s 4th Symphony, and the world premiere of Kenji Bunch’s Symphony no. 2, ‘Jubilee’ that written about Mobile, for Mobile. Not to mention the gala with Joshua Bell!”

“But as the musical director I pick all the pieces so of course I love all the music we play,” Speck quipped.

Maybe for Mobile’s symphony, this latest new start seems the most promising of all.

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Tickets for Pictures At an Exhibition are $15 – $60 and preview of the dress rehearsal at 2 p.m. is $12.

For more information, call Mobile Symphony at 432-2010.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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