The Orchestra of the Bronx, founded and conducted by Michael Spierman, returns on Sunday, Oct. 22, at 3 p.m. for a free concert at Lehman College’s Lovinger Theatre, performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (the Eroica). Spierman leads a 40-member orchestra of musicians drawn from other major orchestras and Broadway shows.

Concerts continue to be free of charge, in accordance with the company’s mission to enable people of all income levels to experience the beauty of the orchestral repertoire.

According to the organizers of the Lehman College concert, Clarinet Concerto is the last completed composition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, finished just weeks before his death. They said the date of its first performance is not certain, but may have been Oct. 16, 1791, in Prague. They added that the concerto was written to be played on the basset clarinet, an invention of virtuoso clarinettist and friend of Mozart, Anton Stadler, and said after Mozart’s death the composition was published with changes to the solo part to allow performance on conventional instruments.  The Orchestra of The Bronx is proud to present clarinettist Monte Morgenstern, an orchestra member since 1971, as soloist.

They said Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most celebrated works, is a large-scale composition that marked the beginning of the composer’s innovative “middle period.” They said it was composed mainly in 1803-04, and the work broke boundaries in symphonic form, length, harmony, emotional and cultural content. They said it is widely considered a landmark in the transition between the Classical and the Romantic era, and is also often considered to be the first Romantic symphony. They said Beethoven first conducted private performances in 1804 in Prince Lobkowitz’s palace, and later the first public performance on April 7, 1805 in Vienna.