When the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra put out its season schedule last spring, I put a big red circle around Saturday's date: Don't miss this one.

Saturday's program opens with that staple of the Classical era repertoire, Mozart's "Haffner" Symphony, and then progresses to my two favorite composers of the last century: Bela Bartók and Sergei Prokofiev. Be still my heart!

Winner of the annual ECSO Instrumental Competition, Clare Elena Semes, will perform Bartók's lilting 1908 musical love letter to a violinist he hoped to woo, his Violin Concerto No. 1. As you might expect, the score is full of affection and wit. Violinist Semes appeared in a Live Lunch Break streaming concert at theday.com last year as half of the violin duo Les Deux, with her friend (and former ECSO soloist) Chelsea Starbuck Smith. You can watch it here.

The centerpiece of the program, to be led by ECSO Music Director Toshi Shimada, is Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, a work that gets my vote for symphony of the century. This 1943 symphony has it all: a vast scope, deep emotion and sonic heft. It is fueled by the two hallmarks of the Soviet composer's success: motor-driven rhythmic intensity and a seemingly bottomless well of melody after melody.

Don't miss this one.

- MILTON MOORE

Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, 8 p.m. Saturday, Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; $28.80 to $62 with $12 rush tickets for students and active military personnel the night of the performance; (860) 443-2876, gardearts.org.