The Esprit Orchestra’s programme for its second concert of the season is essentially one attention-grabbing piece after another.

On November 20, 8pm at Koerner Hall, Esprit presents m’M, a concert of music written in the last few decades, named after the concerto grosso by Philippe Leroux, which closes the evening; Esprit Music Director Alex Pauk conducts the programme, which also includes two Canadian premieres.

The “M” in Leroux’s m’M is the phonetic interpretation of the French word for “love” (“aime”); complementary to the concerto grosso form - a handful of musicians playing alongside a large ensemble - Leroux offers that “’m’ represents a small group of instrumentalists within the orchestra, and ’M’ represents the remaining larger combination of players surrounding the small group.”

Also on the programme: “a rare listening opportunity” for Esprit audiences, the first Canadian performances of George Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape (1984), and of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (2013), inspired by the virtuosic playing of Joseph Johnson, principal cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Plus, Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri’s Alba evokes dawn in the prairies of Northern Alberta; where other composers link the morning with dew and birds, Di Castri asks, “But what about dawn in the dead of winter?”

m’M happens November 20, 8pm at Koerner Hall; preceding the concert is a conversation moderated by Canadian composer Alexina Louie, starting at 7:15pm. Tickets start at $20, so click here to find out more.