The Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia performs a pair of Masterworks concerts on Saturday, March 19, 8:00pm, at Old Cabell Hall on the Grounds of the University of Virginia and Sunday, March 20, 3:30pm, at Charlottesville High School’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center. Music Director Benjamin Rous has crafted a one-hour program with no intermission that includes Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a and selections from the Carmen Suite of Rodion Shchedrin. The concerts begin with a performance of Richard Strauss’s Serenade for Winds in E-flat. Adhering to COVID restrictions at each of the orchestra’s concert venues, a pre-recorded performance of the Serenade will be projected on the large screen at Old Cabell Hall on March 19th. A live, in-person performance is planned for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center – where a larger stage safely accommodates fourteen wind players – on March 20th. Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony is an autobiographical work for strings, adapted from his Eighth String Quartet and re-working themes from his First, Fifth, Eighth and Tenth Symphonies, the opera Lady MacBeth, the First Cello Concerto and the Second Piano Trio. Familiar musical ideas borrowed from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (the “Pathétique”) and the Funeral March from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung can also be heard. A Soviet composer – inspired by the story of a Spanish gypsy – re-imagines an opera by a French composer (Georges Bizet), to be choreographed by a Cuban (Alberto Alonso), for a Russian prima ballerina (Maya Plisetskaya). Set to new rhythms and laced with sly wit, Rodion’s one-act ballet is a fresher, more modern retelling of George Bizet’s classic opera of the same name. The work was written for strings and a large assemblage of percussion instruments. The Charlottesville Symphony’s 2021-22 concert season is made possible by a major grant from the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. Program notes are posted on the orchestra’s website, www.cvillesymphony.org. The University of Virginia requires that masks be worn at all times inside Old Cabell Hall. In addition to wearing a mask, everyone attending the March 20th concert at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center will be required to provide proof of full vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test taken with 72 hours of arrival at the Center, as well as a valid photo ID is also required. Patrons who are not able to show both will not be able to attend the performance and will be issued a ticket refund. Free parking is available in the UVA Central Grounds Parking Garage, located on Emmet Street South on Saturday nights and at Charlottesville High School’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center on Sunday afternoons. The Charlottesville Free Trolley stops at McCormick Road near the UVA Amphitheater, in close proximity to Old Cabell Hall. Both venues are wheelchair accessible. Single tickets are $10-$45 for adults and $10 for students, and may be purchased at the University of Virginia Arts Box Office, (434) 924-3376, 12:00-5:00pm, Tuesday through Friday in the lobby of the UVA Drama Building at 109 Culbreth Road, or online at www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu. All University of Virginia employees (faculty and staff of all UVA departments and professional schools) are entitled to a 20% discount on tickets to individual performances. This offer does not apply to subscriptions, the December Family Holiday concerts, Pops at the Paramount or previously purchased tickets.