Coming from different eras, the music in this programme explores intersecting trajectories and ideas. For Saint-Saëns, the 19th-century fascination with “exoticism” was more than just a fad. In love with Algeria, he composed a suite inspired by the meeting of cultures in the then-French colony. Contemporary composer Liza Lim draws from the environmental and Buddhist philosophy of Joanna Macy in a piece dedicated to the pianist Tamara Stefanovitch, who will perform it for the first time in Portugal this evening. The second half begins with a Cuban dance, followed by a striking blend of serialism, gospel and jazz, with a Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s mid-20th century piece for trumpet and orchestra that painted the raw reality of the Afro-American condition. This enticing programme concludes with George Gershwin and the energy he found in 1920s Paris.