(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – The Berkshire Symphony will perform works by Keith Fitch, Bernard Rands, and Ludwig van Beethoven in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus on Friday, March 14, 2014, at 8 p.m. There is a pre-concert talk with guest conductor Michael Adelson before the concert at 7:15 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall, adjacent to the main venue. Both of these events are free and open to the public. Adelson continues the Berkshire Symphony’s tradition of programming that compares and contrasts the great works of yesterday and today.

Keith Fitch’s “In Memory” is a new chamber orchestra work commissioned by the League of Composers Orchestra. Fitch currently heads the composition department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition and also directs the CIM New Music Ensemble. Called “gloriously luminous” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, his music has been noted for its eloquence, expressiveness, dramatic sense of musical narrative, and unique sense of color and sonority.

The composer Bernard Rands offers his own contribution to the repertoire of the modern orchestra. The single movement “London Serenade” (1988) is a gift composed in honor of Rands’ friend, composer and conductor Edwin London.

Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, calls Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony the “first obviously revolutionary music.” Even removed from the current events of Beethoven’s time, this masterwork is irresistible. Heroic in many senses, Beethoven’s work is one of the best reasons that the symphony orchestra is so alive and kicking in the 21st century.