Music at Butler: Butler Symphony Orchestra

The Butler Symphony Orchestra takes the stage at Clowes Memorial Hall on Sunday, November 1, with a program built around two big symphonies. The main event is Camille Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony, and the orchestra is bringing its full force of seventy-five players to it. It's an epic, one-of-a-kind work that the ensemble delivers in a passionate, dramatic reading.

The first half of the program is a reprise of William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony, so you'll get two distinct symphonic works in one afternoon. Between Still's early twentieth-century American voice and Saint-Saëns' French Romanticism, the two halves pull from different traditions, and the orchestra handles both with the same seventy-five-piece lineup.

Clowes Memorial Hall is on the Butler University campus at 4602 Sunset Ave. in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis. The concert starts at 3 PM, and it's free and open to the public—no tickets required. If you can't make it in person, there's a free live stream available to watch from home. So, whether you're heading to the hall or tuning in online, it's a full afternoon of orchestral music without a cover charge.