The musical potpourri of North America from the last century sets us off on our musical journey this season. Kevin Day’s energetic and newly written Lightspeed precedes Barber’s Violin Concerto, which emerged from the shadows of WWII. Pulitzer-winning Jennifer Higdon imbues the feel of a postmodern jig to “Jumble Dance.” The 1930s gave us Copland’s “Short Symphony,” and stellar piano player and jazz composer James P. Johnson—arguably the most important Black musician in New York in the 1920s—wrote “Drums,” which was lost for 40 years.