Events & Calendars Amherst Symphony Orchestra Winter Concert

The Amherst College Department of Music presents the Amherst Symphony Orchestra’s third installment of its yearlong survey “Epic Journeys: Famous Fifth Symphonies.” The performance will take place on Saturday, Dec. 8, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center. Tickets are required and will be available for purchase at the door; seating is by general admission.

The concert features Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67, by Ludwig van Beethoven. ASO Music Director Mark Lane Swanson describes it as “the granddaddy of them all... A symphony which both inspired and intimidated all future composers, Beethoven’s Fifth defines and perfects the genre. It opens in sudden crisis and, in an abstract four-movement narrative, musically and dramatically works through tragedy to achieve triumph and transcendence.”

The concert showcases the talents of two Amherst seniors: Josh Mayer ’13 is the soloist in Antonio Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto in A minor, RV 498, and Robert Flynn ’13 is the soloist in Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, op. 73. Swanson conducts.

Tickets are $10 for the general public; $5 for senior citizens, students with ID and children 12 and under; and free for Five College students with ID. Tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the performance.