The UGA Performing Arts Center will present the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. Nov. 3 in Hodgson Concert Hall in Athens.

Music Director Robert Spano will conduct the ASO with guest pianist Garrick Ohlsson in a program featuring Sergei Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No. 4, The Poem of Ecstasy.

The concert will open with a new work by Finnish composer Esa- Pekka Salonen, titled "Nyx."

Co-commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Radio France, Carnegie Hall and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, "Nyx" received its world premiere Feb. 19 in Paris with the Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France.

Following the Athens concert, the ASO will travel to New York to debut the new composition at Carnegie Hall Nov. 5.

Spano, currently in his 11th season as music director of the orchestra, is recognized as one of the world's most imaginative conductors. His discography with the ASO includes 19 recordings, six earning Grammy Awards. In 2008, he was named Musical America's Conductor of the Year.

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, Ohlsson has established himself as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. During the 2011-2012 season, he will perform at Carnegie Hall with the Atlanta Symphony and Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic. His upcoming tours of Europe and Asia will include concerts in France, England, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Vanessa Tome, a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at UGA, will give a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to the performance. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Tickets for the ASO concert are $20-$55 with discounts for UGA students. They can be purchased online or by calling the Performing Arts Center box office at 706-542-4400 or toll free at 888-289-8497.