This concert conjures magic in three very different senses: the playful enchantment of fairy-tale sprites, the ritual power of folk belief, and the mysterious alchemy by which love and compassion can transform the world itself. Mendelssohn's Scherzo, drawn from his incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, is pure fairy magic, light-footed and shimmering, conjuring Puck and his mischief with just two flutes. Jessie Montgomery's Voodoo Dolls turns to a different kind of magic entirely, one rooted in ritual and folk tradition. Inspired by West African drumming patterns and conceived as part of a set of dances built around childhood dolls, real and imagined, it channels an incantatory, almost talismanic energy. The program closes with Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, whose title translates to "Transfigured Night." Based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, it follows two lovers on a moonlit walk as one confesses a painful secret, only to be met with an act of compassion so complete that it transforms, or transfigures, everything between them. Across the evening, mystery gives way not to explanation, but to wonder: each piece asks us to believe, if only for a few minutes, in something we cannot fully see or name.