One way Gerard Schwarz could do a power of good for Seattle’s music scene is to reserve more time in his schedule for composition—not that I’m recommending he give up his day job; I’m just sayin’. His In Memoriam for cello and strings was premiered on a 2005 Music of Remembrance concert, and the dark, opulent, intricate, heartfelt piece was one of the more memorable new works of recent years. MoR has wisely tapped him again, and his chamber-orchestra work Jeanette and Rudolf, a tribute to his Viennese grandparents, will be premiered this weekend to open the organization’s tenth season. Devoted both to music by composers who were victims of or refugees from the Holocaust, and to new works on the subject, MoR has also programmed Letter to Warsaw (2003) by Thomas Pasatieri, with soloist Jane Eaglen, and Prayer (1924) by Ernest Bloch—who, though Jewish, was not one of the wave of composers who came to America fleeing Nazism; he arrived in 1916, taught on both coasts, and died in 1959 in Portland.

Sun., Nov. 4, 4 p.m., 2007