Aoife O’Donovan sung about the fight for voting rights in the midst of a pandemic to a masked, all-vaccinated audience that was thinking about voting rights in the midst of a pandemic.

But O’Donovan’s “America, Come,” an unreleased cycle of five symphonic songs – “All My Friends,” “Crisis,” “War Measure,” “Daughters” and the title number – isn’t about the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and COVID-19. It’s about the 19th Amendment and influenza and centers around the fight to win Tennessee’s assent so woman could finally vote in these United States.

Performing with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in a sparsely attended Music Hall – only a few hundred of the 2,400 seats were occupied – the Crooked Still and I’m With Her singer/songwriter/guitarist combined original lyrics, both sung and spoken; letters by suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt and President Woodrow Wilson; the symphony; and acoustic guitar, bass and drums to transport concertgoers of Oct. 19, 2021, to 1920. But the fight for voting rights remains, sadly, unchanged on many levels.

“What is the democracy for which the world is battling/and for which we offer up our man power/woman power/money power/our all?,” O’Donovan sung to conclude the 20-minute piece.

Summoning the lower reaches of her high and beguiling voice, O’Donovan then sung a fairly sultry version of “America the Beautiful” – sounds inappropriate, but it wasn’t – and ended the 90-minute concert with a wistful rendition of “I’ll be Seeing You” and a satisfied fist bump with CPO Conductor John Morris Russell.

Like the audience, the orchestra was vaccinated and masked, with red face coverings to match their red jackets and blazers. O’Donovan was set apart by a floor-length, rose-pink dress with black polka dots and a voice that that provided comfort even when singing about uncomfortable topics like eroding democracy and sexual abuse, as she did on “Briar Rose” earlier in the evening.

This was O’Donovan’s third performance with the ensemble and it was charming from front to back.

Accompanied by bassist Ethan Jodziewicz and Dawes’ drummer Griffin Goldsmith, O’Donovan played orchestral arrangements of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” and Bob Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” alongside her own original songs including “Magic Hour,” which opened the star-spangled show with a detour to her family’s native Ireland; “The King of All Birds” and “Red and White and Blue and Gold.”

The classical players sat out while the trio previewed O’Donovan’s 2022 album Age of Apathy with lead single “Phoenix” and the unreleased “Sister Starling,” which, like “King” before them, carry a heavy Joni Mitchell vibe. O’Donovan joked to Morris that he could sit down for these numbers, but he preferred to shake it a bit on his conductors’ stand.

Morris also shook it when the CPO opened the performance with Laura Karpman’s “All American.” No surprise, given the workout the percussion section got pulling double-duty on kitchen appliances and pots and pans, thus adding delirious cacophony to the symphonic celebration of female composers of patriotic music.

It was red. And white. And blue. But mostly, it was golden.