Whether in the soaring climax of a great symphony, or in the quest to reach the outer limits of space, the same bold and indomitable spirit of mankind is present. That spirit is celebrated this weekend as the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and Chorus offer their second program of the season, "Celebrate the Planets."

Marking NASA's 50th birthday, the LSO presents Gustav Holst's "The Planets" alongside a world premiere of a choral suite by Miguel del Águila, who is also the winner of this year's Composer's Award. The Symphony has bestowed this annual honor upon an impressive list of modern composers in its 48-year history.

Lancaster's award is only the most recent in a remarkable series of accolades, grants and prizes del Águila has earned during his career. Uruguayan by birth, he moved to the United States at the age of 21 and attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After a decade in Europe, he returned to the West Coast, where he resides. He has written more than 100 works, many of which have been recorded on more than 20 compact discs.

According to Stephen Gunzenhauser, music director of the LSO, "Del Águila represents something that is very important in our country. He is an example of a person who was not necessarily born and raised here, but comes here with the energy and cultural background of another place. While he has been an American since 1978, he still brings to his music that sense of another culture for us to enjoy — yet intermingled with our own because of his living in the U.S."

This weekend's concert opens with the "Call of the Champions" for chorus and orchestra by American composer John Williams, a work commissioned for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Williams had previously written music for three other Olympic Games, but is best known for the dozens of film scores he has penned in his lifetime, ranging from nearly all of Steven Spielberg's feature films to George Lucas' "Star Wars" trilogy to the Harry Potter series.

"Call of the Champions" opens with the brisk cry 'Citius, Altius, Fortius' (Faster, Higher, Stronger), the Latin motto created by the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, who first proposed it to the International Olympic Committee in 1894. The phrase was adopted at the Parisian games in 1924.

After this invigorating opener, the combined force of instrumentalists and singers turns to del Águila's Choral Suite No. 2, for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 95, which was composed specifically for the LSO. Gunzenhauser, who had heard del Águila's First Choral Suite, liked it very much, but wanted a more substantial work. The publisher suggested this to del Águila, who agreed to expand the first suite and broaden the orchestration into this weekend's premiere.

For the Second Choral Suite, the composer drew music from his 2006 opera "Time and Again Barelas," commissioned by the New Mexico Symphony and the City of Albuquerque to commemorate that city's 300th anniversary. And while the music is distilled from an opera, Gunzenhauser said, "the choral suite functions as a piece of music completely independent of the opera. There is celebration, tragedy, wildness, and deep emotions — not unlike life itself."

The performance will feature guest tenor Blake Smith, a frequent oratorio and opera soloist and faculty member at the University of Delaware.

Del Águila reflected: "When I was approached to write something for the tercentennial of Albuquerque, I realized that their history was intense and at various times there were groups who came to victimize them. Before the Spaniards, there were Comanches and Apaches. Then the Spaniards came, Mexicans came, the Anglos came — it was a chain of who could kill faster. Everyone told me something different about what they thought this should be about."

Del Águila had no problem with the complex history and fuzzy ground rules surrounding the commission.

"I have a contorted sense of drama," he said wryly. "So it is a love story that lasts 500 years, but it is a difficult love because there is guilt and there are things to forgive."

William Wright, professor of choral music at Franklin & Marshall College, was recently named the new chorus master of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. Choristers are drawn from the community as well as from Elizabethtown College, Millersville University and F&M.

Wright acknowledged that del Águila's work is a wonderful test for the singers.

"Two aspects are challenging," he said. "One in particular is the rhythm. There are several spots in the piece that have rhythms that are pretty complex to read, such as measures of 13/16 that can look pretty shocking, until you realize that they are just different groupings of beats. The second challenge has to do with the 'ear challenge' of this music — not that it is atonal, but it contains some more complex harmonies."

After intermission, the Symphony departs from an earthly world of love and tragedy and blasts off into the heavens for Gustav Holst's seven-movement suite, "The Planets." The composer did not write a movement for our planet, and Pluto (recently demoted to dwarf planet status), was not discovered until about 15 years after the completion of Holst's work. Now this orchestral masterpiece, nearly a century old, has become the most widely performed work by any English composer.

Portions of "The Planets" have frequently found their way into modern film and popular culture. Perhaps the most famous theme comes from the central movement, "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity." This sweeping melody later became one of England's great nationalistic hymns, "I Vow to Thee, My Country." Known also by the tune name "Thaxted" after the English village where Holst lived much of his life, it is notable for having been Princess Diana's favorite hymn, and it was sung at both her wedding and funeral.

The changing moods and colorful orchestration of "The Planets" were astonishing in its own time and they still seem fresh and imaginative today.

Neptune, the final movement, with its fade-out into nothingness, calls for a choir of women's voices situated offstage. According to Gunzenhauser, "The tradition historically, until at least the end of the 1800s, was to end with a bang. Holst was one in a series of composers who flew against the grain. Neptune's ending portrays nothing more than the ice-cold barrenness of outer space."

Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, "Celebrate the Planets," Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 3 and 8 p.m., Sun. 7:30 p.m., Fulton Opera House, 12 N. Prince St., $25-$62, 397-7425.