A world-class classical orchestra concert for about five bucks a ticket?

That’s the deal -- the potential deal, anyway -- being offered by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra to those who buy a "passport" to their upcoming International Chamber Orchestra Festival that runs for four weeks in January.

The SPCO is playing host to, and sometimes collaborating with, four other chamber orchestras in a 20-concert festival of 17 different programs. Single tickets run as high as $59 each for the concerts being performed in venues around the Twin Cities, including the home-base Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

But as part of its marketing program, the SPCO also has been offering a "passport" program. When it was launched, the deal was this: Pay $100 for a passport and you could redeem it for tickets to any or all of the 17 different concerts. Doing the math, it amounted to a fraction less than $5.89 per ticket if you attended all of the concerts.

That deal no longer exists. In a recent move, the passport price was reduced to $80. Reason: The final two concerts of the festival -- both in smaller venues -- have sold out. So for 80 bucks you get 15 concerts, or roughly $5.34 per ticket.

Put another way, you’ve already lost the chance to hear the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, a San Francisco-based band performing on period instruments that has been led by Nicholas McGegan for the past quarter-century. Conductor McGegan is also one of the SPCO’s artistic partners and he once headed the orchestra’s old Baroque concert series.

The Philharmonia concerts on Jan. 29 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater and Jan. 30 at Wayzata Community Church are sold out.

The other orchestras visiting the Twin Cities during the festival include the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

For a festival schedule, go here.

And get your deals while they last.