By MIKE DUNHAM

On Saturday night, the Anchorage Civic Orchestra delivered one of the more interesting -- and maybe most ambitious -- orchestra programs heard here in the past few years, consisting of two works that we had previously not heard and a formidable masterpiece with whom almost everyone is familiar.

The first "new" work was the "Menuha" Overture composed by Hong Kong's Daniel Law in 2003 and dedicated to the memory of the victims of the SARS epidemic and the doctors who finally conquered the disease. I cannot recall hearing about an orchestral piece of music dedicated to a health issue before now and the suspicion was that this might be something right out of the Socialist Realism school of music writing, i.e. "Tribute to the Workers at Tractor Factory No. 36." And why not? There are plenty of big musical numbers written to celebrate military victories (or losses). Why not something to commemorate a medical victory.

The piece opens with a sickly chromatic descending motif. A snare drum triggers a sense of greater urgency as the crisis deepens. Trumpets (health workers?) signal a long exchange of struggle, tension, chaos and trouble before -- with the sweep of the harp -- a simple, folk-like hymn tune (apparently collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams of "For All the Saints" fame) takes over, and a mood of triumph and tranquility ("Menuha" is Hebrew for "rest") concludes the piece.

The ACO obviously worked hard to get this challenging and unexpectedly rewarding piece in shape for the performance. But they probably worked even harder on the next item, the world premiere of an orchestrated version of Sonata for Horn by Anchorage's beloved band man and teacher, Curtiss Blake, killed in a plane crash in 2004. Dan Heynen, who orchestrated the student work for this occasion, was also the soloist and did a marvelous job.

Blake's piece opens with a long solo cadenza leading into a moody first movement that ends quietly. There's an energetic scherzo (and a slow movement, not included because Heynen and Blake's heirs worried that it would be as difficult to play as it was to listen to) and a rollicking finale. The orchestra handled some extremely difficult writing very well indeed. Enough so that by the end of the work, I felt confident in proclaiming it one of the five best horn concertos to have been composed in the last 200 years. OK, that's fairly slim competition, but I'm standing by it.

The end of the concert, Dvorak's New World Symphony, had some worried. The piece is undoubtedly one of the crown jewels of orchestral literature and an inferior performance would be the cause for much dismay. The trumpets, in fact, came in several bars early at a key point and played their whole line while the rest of the players struggled to figure out what was going on; happily they managed to stay on track, and with a timely cue from conductor Tai Wai Li, everything got back on track.

Otherwise, the all-important horns (Heynen being back in his seat again) carried their part at full strength, the winds largely acquitted themselves with distinction and the often problematic strings came through, pushing the climaxes at the end of the first and last movements in a thoroughly enjoyable manner.

On a sunny Alaska spring afternoon, it can be hard to drag oneself to the Sidney Laurence Theater for any kind of indoor event. But this is one concert I'm glad I got to.