Mutations: Bach, Bartók & Barber

Associate Conductor Daniel Cho leads a program built around transformation. Mutations from Bach opens the evening, a regal piece for brass ensemble by American composer Samuel Barber, which deftly transforms a 17th-century chorale melody into a setting of the same chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach. The program then turns to the German master himself with his Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, whose interplay of horns, oboes, and strings shows off the full color of a Baroque chamber ensemble. The evening closes with Béla Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings, written for string orchestra in the summer of 1939, merging Eastern European folk-rooted warmth with the musical forms and idioms of the Baroque era.

The concert takes place at the Avon Theater, a small venue known for its intimate setting and excellent acoustics — a chance to hear a chamber orchestra’s full range of color and detail up close.