Jung-Ho Pak has some deep thoughts about his turn up as Monterey Symphony guest conductor.

“It couldn’t be more apropos that this weekend’s Monterey Symphony concert opens with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture,” says longtime Carmel Valley denizen and Cape Cod Symphony Artistic Director/Conductor Jung-Ho Pak, the third of four finalists vying to become Monterey Symphony’s next music director. Beethoven was commissioned to write incidental music for the German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1787 work of the same name, a dark drama that is a call to action for the Dutch to finally stand up for their freedom and resist the oppression and imperialistic rule Spain held over them in the sixteenth century.

“The overture is gleaned from and informed by the play,” Pak says. “Count Egmont, the main character, is made a martyr for human freedom and the theme is not at all unlike what we presently see in Ukraine.”

Pak was previously seen and heard here three years ago with a racy program of stunning, avant-garde selections surrounding the theme of water. This time out, all three pieces are traditional in scope (Beethoven, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and Brahms Symphony), showcasing Pak’s wide breadth of interests.

“It is incumbent upon all of us in this industry – players, conductors, composers and yes, listeners too, to illuminate the entire canon,” Pak says. But rather than delve deep into the nature and rigors of this weekend’s program, Pak turns circumspect and philosophical. “All symphony orchestras are very important, especially right now, given this era of isolation and polarization we are just now starting to come out of,” he says. “And I am not just saying that because I’m a conductor, I say that as a human.”

Pak’s belief in the power of music doesn’t stop there: “Onstage and in the hall sit highly trained professionals and audience members of all stripes – liberal and conservatives – shoulder to shoulder, not with partisanship but with a common goal, realizing their individual instruments to such a high degree that the written score is elevated to its very highest affirmation of our shared humanity. That is the point. To broker the distance and differences between ourselves and ourselves… Music can do that.”

MONTEREY SYMPHONY with Jung-Ho Pak and Rachel Barton Pine on violin. 7:30pm Saturday, April 16 and 3pm Sunday, April 17. Sunset Center, San Carlos & 9th Ave., Carmel. $41-$82. 646-8511, montereysymphony.org