Music Amherst College Symphony Orchestra: Welcome Concert Class of 2022: "¡Viva México!"

The Amherst Symphony Orchestra launches the fall 2018 season with the music of Spain and Latin America, starting with a showcase of 20th-century concert music from Mexico on Sunday, Sept. 23, at 3 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College. Tickets are available on the day of the concert beginning at 2 p.m. in the lobby of Arms Music Center. For more information, please call 413-542-2195, email concerts@amherst.edu or visit amherstsymphonyorchestra.com.
 
The concert opens with the boisterous "Sensemayá" (1938) by Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940), which fuses popular and Stravinsky-like elements in a vibrant tapestry, all in a 7/4 metric scheme. It continues with "El Salón México" (1940), a love letter to the popular music of Mexico's dance halls, which the American master Aaron Copland (1900–1990) absorbed during his frequent tours as a New Deal south-of-the-border arts ambassador for Franklin D. Roosevelt.  
 
The program also includes the 12-minute masterpiece "Sinfonía india" (Symphony No. 2), by Mexico's most influential concert composer, Carlos Chávez (1899–1978) — a work of such vital authenticity and Mexican identity that it has been described as “profoundly non-European.” Finally, the concert closes with "Danzón No. 2" (1994) by Arturo Márquez (born 1950), which is almost cinematic in approach and was inspired by a visit to a ballroom in Veracruz.

Information on the ASO's entire 2018–19 season is available online at amherstsymphonyorchestra.com.

Tickets may be purchased only at the door. Tickets are $10 for the general public; $5 for senior citizens, students with ID and children under 12; and free to Amherst students and all Five College students with ID.