Steven Moeckel, Tucson Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster, performed with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra.

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ORO VALLEY — The volunteer Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra is hoping to make some noise this year, but when it opened its "Makin' Some Noise" season on Sunday, it asked for silence.

As the 75-player strong ensemble was preparing to perform Texas composer Donald Grantham's "Southern Harmony," conductor Adam Boyles asked that the audience fight the urge to clap in the third movement.

That's the part when the first three violinists, led by longtime concertmaster Samuel Kreiling, took center stage and fiddled out folk tunes while the rest of the orchestra clapped in perfect rhythm.

The musical clappers, Boyles explained beforehand, were following Grantham's score; their precisely timed claps were syncopated with the fiddles. Any outside clapping would send the piece into disarray and all musical innovations would be lost.

So the audience of about 600 sat silent as the string section, brass and wind sections and those mighty thumpers in the percussion section clapped, some lightly, some with vigor in time to this wondrous piece.

The Grantham work, based on the 1835 songbook of the same name, turned out to be the hidden gem of the afternoon concert. That is saying a lot about a concert program that included Antonin Dvorák's fanciful Carnival Overture and whose highlight was the second-half solo appearance by Tucson Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Steven Moeckel.

Moeckel played Max Bruch's venerable and taxing Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, which he has performed only twice in public, both times with SASO. The piece is a strenuous workout for the soloist, who does most of the heavy lifting.

The concerto calls for numerous key changes as tempos go from solemn and lush in the opening to fanciful and spirited in the second movement and nearly bombastic in parts of the finale.

If his facial expressions were a looking glass into his being, the piece surely proved a workout for Moeckel, dressed casually in black slacks and a red silk button-down shirt without a collar. As he ripped his bow across the strings, his face reflected steeled determination and sparks of triumph, all delivered in various renditions of a smile that he flashed to the audience and to the orchestra throughout the 25-minute piece.

The smiles for the orchestra seemed heartfelt, sort of a thank you for perfect timing, well-placed energy and precise play that matched Moeckel note for note as far as the ear could hear.

Sunday marked the ensemble's move to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, a nearly 1,000-seat auditorium across the street from the church campus on North Paseo del Norte. It has block windows that allow in the sunlight and wooden beams that embrace the pristine acoustics.

The ensemble will perform its next three concerts at St. Andrew's. It returns to its regular home at the Berger Performing Arts Center next spring to close its season.