The San Francisco Choral Society premieres Eric Tuan's 'Three Portraits' — built from the testimonies of three 19th-century Chinese American women — then stages a semi-theatrical 'Carmina Burana' with more than 150 voices, Saturday night at Davies.

The San Francisco Choral Society closes its fifth Summer Festival Chorus with a double bill on Saturday, Aug. 15, at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. Music starts at 7:00 p.m. The night pairs a brand-new commission with one of the loudest, most theatrical warhorses in the choral repertoire, and the pairing is the whole reason to go.

First on the program is the world premiere of Eric Tuan's "Three Portraits," a triptych for solo trumpet, strings and chorus that gives voice to three Chinese American women from California's early decades. Tuan, a Bay Area native who directs the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir, built it from their firsthand accounts, drawing on the research of historians Jean Pfaelzer and Julia Flynn Siler, whose 2019 book "The White Devil's Daughters" chronicled the women who fought trafficking in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tuan has said the work grew out of an earlier opera he made with Pfaelzer, "Echoes of Eureka," which premiered in Berkeley last year and left him wanting to keep building music alongside historians, according to SFGATE. One of the three voices is Mary Tape, who in 1885 wrote a scorching letter to the city's Board of Education after her daughter was turned away from a public school.

Then the room changes gear. Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" follows in a semi-staged production from Bay Area artist Rotimi Agbabiaka — more than 150 singers strong, backed by the California Chamber Symphony, with young performers from the San Francisco Youth Chorus in the mix. Baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, soprano Chelsea Hollow and tenor Sam Faustine take the solo turns, and SFCS artistic director Robert Geary conducts the full evening. If you only know this piece from the thundering "O Fortuna" in every movie trailer, the live version at full force is a different animal — it's music to hear in a hall, not a car.

The logistics. Tickets are through City Box Office (cityboxoffice.com or 415-392-4400); First Tier seats run $50, and the structured listing shows a 20 percent discount code, ARONOW20, that knocks a First Tier ticket to $40. Premium tiers can be upgraded to include a champagne toast reception after the concert. As of Thursday the box office still listed seats in stock across tiers.

Getting there. Davies sits at Van Ness and Grove. The Van Ness Muni Metro station is a two-minute walk, and Civic Center BART is about 10 minutes on foot up Grove. If you drive, the Performing Arts Garage on Grove between Franklin and Gough is the closest lot and fills fast on concert nights — get there before 6:30 or plan to circle.

If you've got two hours: show up in time for the premiere. A brand-new work only gets a world premiere once, and "Three Portraits" is the part of this bill you can't stream later or catch on tour. Stay for "O Fortuna," obviously — but the reason to buy the ticket is the half-hour before it.