By Pierre Ruhe

For the AJC

Cobb Symphony Orchestra. Sunday at Kennesaw State University's Bailey Performance Center. www.cobbsymphony.orgLike most semi-professional suburban ensembles, the Cobb Symphony Orchestra walks a tricky path. They must program music that audiences will buy tickets to hear and donors will help fund, but also music the (mostly) volunteer musicians want to play and can play successfully -- since the fun and challenging stuff is often the most virtuosic.

Over the weekend, at Kennesaw State University's Bailey Performance Center, the CSO achieved several of these aims with Gustav Mahler's epic Symphony No. 2, a cosmic meditation on death, the nature of life and the afterlife. It is subtitled "Resurrection" and, when you read the composer's letters and thoughts on its composition, it can seem autobiographical, where Mahler fantasizes about his own death and spiritual rebirth.

Almost 80 minutes long, the Cobb Symphony performance required 200 people on stage, with the orchestra augmented by ten French horns, eight trumpets, lots of percussion, a large choir and two solo singers.

Michael Alexander, in his fifth season as music director, led an engaging, musically solid reading. There was a bit of fudging in the opening funeral march -- an extravagant, winding emotional journey -- but, more essentially, the architecture was nicely etched. Alexander's pacing felt organic and breathed comfortably on a human scale yet was always carefully structured, making sense of the disjointed rhythms and moodiness.

The venue helped enormously. The Bailey Center is a small hall (624 seats) but with the acoustics of a fine large hall -- clear, reverberant, warm. Thus Mahler's exaggerated extremes -- from detailed craftsmanship to sonic booms -- were clearly heard and felt.

Across the symphony, Alexander and his players were at their most convincing and heart-felt making broad statements in sweeping gestures. In the whirling and almost psychedelic Scherzo, however, Alexander had trouble cutting a sharp edge with the orchestra. Phrases that begged for crisp articulation and precise maneuvering instead felt spongy.

Happily, the CSO Chorus, prepared by Bryan Black, sang with tight ensemble and good diction. And the two vocal soloists, perched on the balcony above the orchestra, were of an altogether loftier stature. Soprano Jana Young, who teaches at Kennesaw State, sang the small soprano part gorgeously.

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wor, who graduated a few years ago from Georgia State University, is already launching a successful career. (She was one of the comically cruel step-sisters in the Atlanta Opera's production of "Cinderella" last season.) Her Mahler was lovely, nuanced and deeply expressive. The two women capped the symphony on the line "Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen" ("With wings I won for myself"), a radiant, other-worldly, transformative moment.

The Cobb Symphony, now 51 years old, has come a remarkable distance in the decade I've been hearing them. Its annual budget is now just under $1 million, and it employs 21 core musicians for every concert -- mostly section principals -- and, depending on the repertoire, beefs up the forces with local freelancers, church musicians, academics and other skilled musicians looking for an inspiring symphonic outlet. Major works like Mahler's Second, in a convincing performance, helps keep everyone satisfied and eager for the next challenge.

Pierre Ruhe blogs about classical music at ArtsCriticATL.com