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.

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 is late period Strauss in the same glorious 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 but which, after Beethoven's furious retraction of his dedication to Napoleon, now generally embodies and inspires acts of daring and courage in service of moral and civic values.

General admission, with unreserved seating, is free.