Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024, 7 P.M.

Buckley Recital Hall, Arms Music Center, Amherst College

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​​​The Amherst Symphony Orchestra (ASO) presents its final performance of 2025 on Friday evening, December 5, 2025 at 7pm with a concert on the theme of personal and collective heroism.  Mark Lane Swanson, Music Director, conducts.  The event takes place at Buckley Recital Hall, Arms Music Center, on the Amherst College campus.

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Amherst College senior John Joire '25 is the ASO's heroic soloist in the Horn Concerto #2 in E-flat major (1942) by Richard Strauss.  Fiendishly difficult yet also sublimely beautiful, this concerto is late period Strauss in the same glorious and sumptuous style as his oboe concerto and autumnal Four Last Songs. 

 

The concert concludes after intermission with Symphony #3 in E-flat major ("Eroica") by Ludwig van Beethoven. This work, originally intended to celebrate Napoleon Bonaparte's commitment to republicanism, now -- after Beethoven's furious retraction of his dedication to Napoleon -- may be interpreted as a call to acts of daring and courage in service of moral and civic values.

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General admission, with unreserved seating, is free.