In an exciting collaboration between two major local arts organizations, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will host members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra this Thursday evening for a remarkable (and free!) performance you won’t want to miss. The concert marks the completion of one of the works on display as part of “Barely There (Part I),” Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit’s current show. “Endingness” (2005) is the work of New York-based, Mexican-born multidisciplinary artist Pablo Helguera. It consists of three interrelated elements: the musical composition to be performed; an elegant, reconfigurable sculpture made of framed beeswax (on view at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit); and an essay (available to read at the museum and online) investigating the subjects of death, memory, art, endings and endingness (defined by Helguera as “the level of consciousness we acquire of a certain reality just in the moment when this reality is about to extinguish”). Accordingly, in addition to Helguera’s piece, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra members will perform the fourth movement of Joseph Haydn’s 1772 Symphony No. 45 (the “Farewell” Symphony), known, in performance, for its strikingly visual exploration of endings.

I asked Helguera, who comes from a family of classical musicians (and whose favorite record as a child was Stravinsky’s “Firebird“), to describe the musical component of “Endingness.” He cited the influence of early modern European composers like Stravinsky and Ravel on the work, and suggested that concertgoers might hear the influence of Samuel Barber and Charles Ives, as well. The three-movement piece for string orchestra is dedicated to Helguera’s father, who died just two months after its 2005 premiere. “It is, perhaps, one of the most personal works I have ever made,” he said. “To me, visual art is my life, but music is my religion. For that reason, the fact that the DSO, under direction of Leonard Slatkin, is to perform the piece is, without any doubt, the greatest honor I have received in my life.”

“An Evening of Endingness” takes place Thursday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m. at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit: 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-832-6622; mocadetroit.org. The performance is free, but seating is limited and starts promptly at 6:30.