The world is more connected than ever through the internet, social media and artificial intelligence, but “people are more and more lonely,” Robert Kahn, the fourth candidate in the Great Falls Symphony‘s search for a new conductor this season.

“The sense of community that’s missing,” Kahn said. “I think this is where performing arts can bring people together in a meaningful way.

Kahn will take the stage to conduct the symphony’s Feb. 14 concert in the symphony’s 67th season.

Each of the season’s six concerts will feature a finalist for music director and conductor.

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It’s a two year search process that began last season, drawing 238 applications from across the globe, according to Hillary Shepherd, the symphony’s executive director.

The symphony established a 12-person search committee composed of conductors, musicians and those with administration experiences.

They broke into teams of three, with each reviewing about a quarter of the applications, whittling the list down to 13 candidates who were asked to answer a set of questions on video, Shepherd told The Electric this spring.

The full search committee reviewed those responses and further narrowed the list down to six candidates with two alternates.

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The top six were scheduled for the season’s concerts and started programming, which “gets perspective of how they think,” Shepherd said. “Programming is a vessel by which to achieve an artistic vision.”

“Really amazing programs” are planned for the search season and “our community will be involved” through surveys and events, Shepherd said. “It’s going to be a pretty amazing time getting to know everybody. It will be fulfilling and exciting for everybody involved and the community gets a say in making sure the next maestro or maestra is the perfect fit for Great Falls.”

Growing up in the Netherlands, Kahn said everything is very flat.

He loves nature and the mountains, which he’s looking forward to taking in while he’s in Great Falls this week, meeting symphony staff, the board, donors, the musicians and the community.

Kahn grew up in a town of similar size to Great Falls and is currently based in Philadelphia, where he’s on staff at the Academy of Vocal Arts.

He’s been looking for a music director position for a bit and said that the more he gets to know the Great Falls Symphony, the more excited he’s become about the prospect of conducting here.

It’s clear, he said, that the organization values community connection and it’s evident in their education, youth, choir and outreach programs.

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The arts, Kahn said, “can be even more vital, relevant to be connected in smaller communities.”

Considering programming for anywhere he might work, it’s about building trust with the community, getting to know them and what they like, but also introducing them to things they might not know.

That trust comes in when performing something unfamiliar so the audience will know it’s for a good reason, Kahn said.

“I think everybody has capacity to love classic music, it’s just about exposure.”

On the artistry side, programming includes pieces that “have [musicians] reach their highest potential,” he said.

The symphony can also fill gaps in many places through youth programs.

Kahn said he loves working with young musicians and currently teaches at the Manhattan School of Music.

“It’s inspiring to see their excitement,” he said, and remembers that spark as a young musician.

Music education is also an investment in the future, since without it, in 20 years, there might be no musicians to play in a local orchestra.

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Music education helped build his career in the arts, but can also make for better people, regardless of their career path.

Music is a very precise art form, with every dot and dash making a difference, Kahn said, and playing with other people, listening and building community is a meaningful experience for young people to build upon.

Rehearsals with the Great Falls Symphony began on Monday and Kahn said he’s looking forward to a “sense of growing together.”

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His Valentine’s Day concert will be a great way to celebrate that holiday, but if you’re not, it’s still a great program.

“Every piece is connected to love but in a different way,” Kahn said, with some recognizable pieces such as Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, which “​contains arguably the most famous love theme in classical music. The theme is instantly recognizable and has been used countless times in film, television, and pop culture,” according to his program notes.

Concert-goers will also hear the Hebrides Overture by Felix Mendelssohn, which immerses the listener in the rolling waves and brooding atmosphere of the sea, evoking both the majesty and mystery of the landscape, according to the program notes, and was “one of the earliest examples of the concert overture – a single-movement orchestral work not tied to an opera, but instead inspired by literature, nature, or historical events.”

Next will be Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, featuring violinist Matthew Hakkarainen. The piece is “widely considered one of the greatest violin concertos in the repertoire. In fact, it became so popular that Bruch ended up resenting its popularity and the lack of attention given to his other works,” according to the notes.

​Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A Minor is not as well known, Kahn said, but is like an adventuresome poem with a “beautiful love theme.”

Saturday’s show includes a free pre-concert talk by Kahn at 6:30 p.m. in the Mansfield Theater and a post-concert reception in the Gibson Room upstairs at the Civic Center.