Violinist Noemi Miloradovic looks for her cue during a January 2008 rehearsal for the Lawrence Chamber Orchestra.

Steven McDonald, director of the Lawrence Chamber Orchestra, has been thinking a lot lately about the intersection of secular and sacred music in previous centuries.

Composers often floated freely between church and worldly music, sometimes taking pieces of one tradition and applying them to the other.

“The balance between the secular and sacred is always going on in the arts,” McDonald says.

That’s the theme behind Sunday’s season-opening concert for the orchestra. Titled “Faith Meets Philosophy,” the program includes pieces that explore the intersection of sacred and secular.

Works will include:

¢ “Adagio for English Horn and Strings” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with guest horn soloist Margaret Marco, associate professor of music at Kansas University.

¢ “Symphony No. 22,” nicknamed “The Philosopher,” by Joseph Haydn.

¢ “Concerto for Organ and Orchestra in F,” by Josef Rheinberger, with guest organ soloist Michael Bauer, professor of music at KU.

McDonald, who has directed the orchestra since April 2007, says the group’s reputation is building both in Lawrence and in the region’s music community.

“We have very fine players calling us to see if we have openings,” McDonald says.

The concert is at 2 p.m. Sunday at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt. Tickets are 13 for adults and $10 for seniors and students.