Kelley O’Connor joins the National Symphony Orchestra for a program steeped in romance. Composer Peter Lieberson set his “Neruda Songs” to five sonnets by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for his beloved wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Like O’Connor, she had a commanding mezzo-soprano voice that conveyed the message of eternal love to the fullest.

Following his wife’s death in 2006, Lieberson received the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for the song cycle. The Boston Symphony subsequently commissioned him to compose a second cycle of Neruda’s songs. These “Songs of Love and Sorrow” were his memorial to her. Not long afterward, he was diagnosed with cancer. O’Connor is grateful for the time she had with him in 2008 before his death.