Oct. 30 will be the start of a new era for Vallejo Symphony Orchestra. It is Marc Taddei’s first show as permanent conductor. Taddei was one of three maestros to audition for the part, and he had his first performance with VSO in January. However, the first orchestra concert of VSO’s 2016-17 season— “Morning”— will have the conductor settling into his new role, as he leads the ensemble through performances of pieces by Joseph Haydn, Sergei Prokofiev and Jean Sibelius.

However, he will not be alone.

For the second composition of the evening, Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major,” the orchestra will be joined by renowned piano player Sara Davis Buechner. The Baltimore-born and Juilliard-trained Buechner has performed all over the world and has been praised by such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Philippine Star and Japanese music magazine In Tune, which proclaimed “Buechner has no superior.” In 1984, she won the gold medal at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and in 1986, she won a bronze medal in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition.

Buechner says her love of music came from her parents.

“I grew up in a lower middle class environment where my parents, who had not attended college, wanted my brother and I to partake of the American dream where your children advance further socially and economically than yourself,” she said. “To that end, we were encouraged to study hard at school, read and learn about culture, and to have piano lessons. There was a wonderful neighborhood piano teacher who came to our house and others once a week, and I began taking lessons from her as young as age 3.”

Buechner has performed in venues across the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl and more. This will mark her first performance with VSO, although she has performed with symphonies throughout Northern California.

“I’ve played several times with the San Francisco Symphony, and had a lot of lovely concerts with the orchestras of Oakland and Sacramento too, where my friend Michael Morgan is the music director,” she said.

The concert will feature three compositions: Haydn’s “Symphony No. 6,” also known as “Morning”; Prokofiev’s third piano concerto and Sibelius’ “Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major.” Buechner will be playing piano on the second piece, which she describes as “one of the great workout warhorses of the repertoire.”

“It’s a spectacular showoff piece with irresistible rhythmic momentum,” she said. “Playing the solo part feels like riding the wildest bucking bronco imaginable. Great fun for the audience, and I’d never ask a listener to that work to expect anything more profound than a rollicking great time.”

She noted that the piano intro to the second movement features a jazzy scale that was clearly stolen from George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

“It’s a moment of rare musical plagiarism where you can imagine Prokofiev making a snide wink to the crowd,” she said.

She hopes that audiences “enjoy the dazzling orchestration, the heart-pounding ostinato rhythms, (and) the athletic soloist.”

“Morning” will be performed 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 30 at the Hogan Middle School Auditorium, located at 850 Rosewood Ave. in Vallejo. Tickets are $15 for students, $40 for adults and $30 for seniors ages 60 and older. For more information, visit vallejosymphony.org or call 643-4441.

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