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Press Releases
Lincoln Center Announces Mostly Mozart Festival 2010
Date: April 12, 2010
Contact: Eva Chien
212.875.5049, echien@lincolncenter.org
LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL 2010 JULY 27-AUGUST 21 44th SEASON OFFERS 35 EVENTS INCLUDING CONCERTS, DANCE, RECITALS, AND LECTURES
• Maestro Louis Langrée Leads Ten Concerts with Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
• Pierre-Laurent Aimard Appointed Artist-in-Residence and Leads Six Concerts Exploring “Bach and Polyphonies” Featuring the North American Debut of Ensemble Basiani, the Festival Debuts of Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier, and the Return of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the International Contemporary Ensemble, August 13-16
• Mark Morris Dance Group Celebrates 30th Anniversary with the Choreographer’s Beloved Masterwork, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato, at the David H. Koch Theater August 5-7
• Twelve Additional Mostly Mozart Festival Debuts: Violinists Isabelle Faust (NY Debut) and James Ehnes; Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado; Pianists Antti Siirala (NY Orchestral Debut), David Fray, Peter Jablonski, and Simon Trpceski; Singers Stephanie Blythe, Sasha Cooke, and Steve Davislim; Fortepianist Christine Schornsheim; and the Ebène Quartet New York, NY April 12, 2010—Jane Moss, Artistic Director, today announced the programming for the 44th season of the Mostly Mozart Festival, which runs from July 27 through August 21, 2010 and offers more than 35 events, including concerts, dance, pre-concert recitals, late-night performances, and lectures. Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée, in his eighth season, will conduct the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in ten concerts featuring a wide range of works by Chopin, Schumann, Bach, Gluck, Saint-Saëns, Barber, Beethoven, Bizet, Mendelssohn, and Weber, as well as the Festival’s namesake. Lincoln Center’s venerable four-week summer music festival will present world-renowned artists and returning Festival favorites, as well as fifteen exciting Mostly Mozart debuts by rising artists. Spanning five venues across the campus, this summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival includes a return by French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the year’s artist-in-residence and curator of a unique series of concerts focused on “Bach and Polyphonies.” Tickets will go on sale for all events on June 3.
This summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival fills us with great joy at the many juxtapositions and wide ranging creativity applied to the genius of Mozart, as well as the creators who influenced him and those who followed him,” said Artistic Director Jane Moss. “It is certain to offer sublime and inspiring musical experiences for our summer-in-New York audiences.”
Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 opens on July 27 and 28 with a gala performance by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra under Louis Langrée with pianist Emanuel Ax and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe performing Mozart, Handel, Gluck, and Chopin at Avery Fisher Hall. This season’s Festival marks the 200th anniversary of two composers who were deeply influenced and inspired by Mozart: Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. Six performances pay tribute to these two masters, including two all-Chopin late-night performances of mazurkas, nocturnes, études, and waltzes by pianists Michaela Ursuleasa (July 28) and Simon Trpceski (August 17), and two orchestral performances of Schumann by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (August 2) and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra (August 17–18).
A thematic focus of this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival is a six-part exploration August 13–16 of “Bach and Polyphonies,” curated and led by Artist-in-Residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Traditional Georgian polyphony performed by the esteemed Ensemble Basiani, making its highly anticipated North American debut, will be juxtaposed with contemporary music by composers including Xenakis, Carter, Body, Edwards, Lang, Birtwistle, Berio, and Lachenmann. Featuring the Mostly Mozart Festival debut of Ars Nova Copenhagen and its director Paul Hillier, as well as the return of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the International Contemporary Ensemble, these performances will be interspersed with the music of Bach, widely considered the ultimate standard in musical polyphony.
Since its inception, the Mostly Mozart Festival has been dedicated to presenting and promoting rising artists at important junctures in their careers, and this summer’s Mostly Mozart debuts include those of violinist James Ehnes (July 30–31) and pianists David Fray (August 6–7) and Peter Jablonski (August 10–11), as well as young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado (August 3–4). Pianist Antti Siirala makes his New York orchestral debut on August 13–14. The Festival’s popular A Little Night Music series will feature intimate debut performances at the Kaplan Penthouse by violinist Isabelle Faust (New York debut, August 7), pianist Simon Trpceski (August 17), and the Ebène Quartet (August 18).
Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 highlights include the return of the Mark Morris Dance Group to the David H. Koch Theater August 5-7 with the choreographer’s highly praised landmark work, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato.
Continuing its presentation of the world’s eminent chamber ensembles, this summer’s Festival also features the return to the acclaimed new Alice Tully Hall by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi with pianist Piotr Anderszewski on August 2, the Emerson String Quartet on August 16, and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra on August 19.
More details on the Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 follow. Programs and artists subject to change. Tickets for Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 will go on sale for multi-buy purchases on May 6. Single tickets go on sale beginning June 3. Tickets can be purchased online at MostlyMozart.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or by visiting the Avery Fisher Hall or Alice Tully Hall box offices at Broadway and 65th St. For a Mostly Mozart brochure, call 212.875.5766. For additional information on Mostly Mozart, including audio clips, visit LincolnCenter.org/MozartListeningLounge.
The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, The Shubert Foundation, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly Mozart. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Corporate support is provided by your Tri-State Cadillac Dealers. Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. WNBC/WNJU are Official Broadcast Partners of Lincoln Center, Inc. Continental Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center, Inc. MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. “Summer at Lincoln Center” is sponsored by Diet Pepsi and the Wall Street Journal. The Mostly Mozart Festival is a presentation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA), which serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. As a presenter of more than 400 events annually, LCPA’s programs include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival and Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, LCPA is leading a series of major capital projects on behalf of the resident organization across the campus. Lincoln Center is committed to providing and improving accessibility for people with disabilities. For information, call the Department of Programs and Services for People with Disabilities at 212.875.5375.
BACH & POLYPHONIES Pierre-Laurent Aimard Chamber Orchestra of Europe Ensemble Basiani (North American Debut) Ars Nova Copenhagen (Mostly Mozart Debut) and Paul Hillier (Mostly Mozart Debut) International Contemporary Ensemble Bach Motet, Ligeti & Xenakis, and Georgian Polyphony Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ensemble Basiani August 13, 7:30pm at Alice Tully Hall A Little Night Music: Bach, Carter, and Ligeti Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe members August 13, 10:30pm at the Kaplan Penthouse
Bach Piano and Brandenburg Concerti, and Georgian Polyphony Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Ensemble Basiani August 14, 7:30pm at Alice Tully Hall
A Little Night Music: Taverner, Body, Edwards, Lang, Mundy, and Byrd Ars Nova Copenhagen, Paul Hillier August 14, 10:30pm at the Kaplan Penthouse
Bach Piano and Brandenburg Concerti, Carter, and Boulez Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe August 15, 3pm at Alice Tully Hall Bach, Birtwistle, Lachenmann, Benjamin, and Purcell International Contemporary Ensemble, Ludovic Morlot, Pierre-Laurent Aimard August 16, 7:30pm at the Rose Theater Developed and led by Mostly Mozart Artist-in-Residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a thematic focus of this season’s Festival is a six-part series using Johann Sebastian Bach’s Baroque masterworks as a foundation for a musical and historical exploration of polyphony. Bach’s use of contrapuntal devices, often considered the standard-bearer of polyphonic technique, has inspired the language of composers as diverse as Mozart and Boulez, Ligeti, and Lachenmann. Often considered a genius at using counterpoint as well, Mozart was profoundly influenced by Bach’s musical language, which inspired innumerable works ranging from Die Zauberflöte to Symphony No. 41. Polyphony’s ancient roots are revealed by the all-male Georgian choir Ensemble Basiani in its North American debut. Ars Nova Copenhagen led by Paul Hiller will both make Festival debuts. In a Mostly Mozart first, eight contemporary composers will make their Festival debuts as part of this remarkable series: Xenakis, Carter, Body, Edwards, Lang, Birtwistle, Berio, and Lachenmann.
Widely acclaimed both as a key figure in the new music world and a uniquely significant musical voice in repertoire of the past, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career which transcends traditional boundaries. Performing throughout the world each season with its most significant orchestras and conductors, Mr. Aimard has also in recent seasons been invited by Carnegie Hall, the Wiener Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Opéra National de Paris, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, and Cité de la Musique in Paris to devise groundbreaking carte blanche and residency projects. In these programs, Mr. Aimard performs chamber music, lieder, solo piano, and orchestral works. In 2008, he was Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre’s Messiaen centenary festival in London; in June this year, he assumed the title of Artistic Director at the Aldeburgh Festival, while continuing as artistic partner with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He holds professorships in Cologne and Paris and inspires audiences worldwide in a series of concert lectures and workshops. Mr. Aimard has an extensive discography and has been honored with several recording prizes, including two ECHO Classic Awards and a Grammy. In 2007, he signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft; his first disc under this agreement, Bach: Art of Fugue, was released in 2008, as was his most recent recording of solo piano pieces, Hommage à Messiaen.
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe was founded in 1981 and draws its membership of 50 musicians from 15 countries. The Orchestra has given many concert performances and made recordings of Beethoven and Mozart piano concertos with Pierre-Laurent Aimard to great critical acclaim. In its 28-year history, the entire Orchestra has visited the United States on five separate occasions. Most recently, its string soloists took part in the 2009 Saint Paul’s International Chamber Orchestra Festival, while the wind soloists have also toured the United States on a number of occasions. The COE has won many international prizes for its wide repertoire, including three Gramophone Record of the Year Awards, a 2004 Grammy Award, and the MIDEM 2008 Classical Download Award. In 2007, the COE was appointed one of the European Union’s Cultural Ambassadors, consequently benefiting from significant EU support.
One of Europe’s most exquisite vocal groups and the inheritors of the Georgian choral music legacy, the all-male Ensemble Basiani performs folk and sacred songs, highlighting the world’s oldest polyphonic music tradition. Georgia is home to one of the world’s most fascinating musical cultures. At once ancient and modern, this rich and evolving polyphonic choral heritage is inextricably bound to church, folk traditions, and national identity. The sensuous, exotic sound of Georgian choral music is a rare and thrilling experience. Restless harmonies combine with unexpectedly abrupt shifts in mood to create an unforgettably distinctive language—this is emotive, passionate music of seemingly boundless variety, invention, and sophistication. This incomparable musical legacy melding musical and sacred traditions is one the greatest and most ancient examples of the art of the song.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a uniquely structured chamber music ensemble comprising 30 dynamic and versatile young performers who are dedicated to advancing the music of our time. Through innovative programming, interdisciplinary collaborations, commissions by young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues, ICE brings together new music and new audiences. ICE was founded in 2001 and has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards, and performing over 50 concerts a year in the U.S. and abroad. Recent engagements include headline performances at the Musica Nova Festival (Helsinki, Finland), the opening ceremonies of the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, and multiple engagements at Miller Theatre, including the U.S. premiere of Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia. In addition to ICE’s performances at major venues throughout the world, the ensemble has self-produced eight large scale contemporary music festivals in venues as wide-ranging as nightclubs, galleries, and public spaces, many of which are free and open to the public. ICE has released critically acclaimed recordings on the Bridge, Naxos, and New Focus labels. Highlights of the 2009–10 season include Composer Portraits of Xenakis and Kaija Saariaho at Miller Theatre and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a collaboration with the conductor Ludovic Morlot at Performance Space 122, new ICE-produced series at the Tank and at Le Poisson Rouge, the Lincoln Center Festival series Varèse: (R)evolutions, and the recording of an all-Xenakis album on Mode Records with Steve Schick.
A champion of music by emerging composers, ICE has given over 400 world premieres to date. In 2004, ICE launched the 21st Century Young Composers Project, a worldwide call for entries by composers under the age of 35, which has culminated in the world premieres of works by rising young composers in 27 different countries.
30th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP WITH HANDEL’S L’ALLEGRO
Mark Morris Dance Group Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato August 5-7, 7:30pm David H. Koch Theater Kicking off the 30th anniversary celebration of one of America’s most beloved modern dance companies, groundbreaking choreographer Mark Morris returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival with three performances of his landmark work, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato (“The Merry Man, the Thoughtful Man, and the Moderate Man”) on August 5-7 at the newly renovated David H. Koch Theater. Considered “one of the very greatest dances of the late 20th century” by the Boston Herald, L’Allegro will feature conductor Jane Glover, sopranos Christine Brandes and Lisa Saffer, tenor John McVeigh, and bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams.
Working with music that composer George Frideric Handel set to poems of John Milton in 1740, Morris crafted a celebratory work that explores the extroverted, introspective, and rational natures of mankind. Since its premiere in 1988, the work has been proclaimed an extraordinary work of contemporary dance—a work that “captures the intensity and wondrous bafflement of human experience, our ravenous animal nature and spiritual calm, the absurdity and amazement, the joy and piercing loneliness and drive to connect,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Making him a perfect collaborator for the Mostly Mozart Festival, Mark Morris is well known for the musicality of his works. Dubbed the “Mozart of modern dance,” by the Washington Post, Morris has created close to 100 dances for the MMDG, and more than two dozen commissions for major ballet and opera companies around the globe. The Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) was formed in 1980 and gave its first performance that year in New York City. The company’s touring schedule steadily expanded to include cities in the U.S. and Europe, and in 1986, it made its first national television program for the PBS series Dance in America. In 1988, MMDG was invited to become the national dance company of Belgium, and spent three years in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The company returned to the United States in 1991 as one of the world’s leading dance companies, performing across the U.S. and at major international festivals. It has maintained and strengthened its ties to several cities around the world, most notably its West Coast home, Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA. It appears regularly in Boston, MA; Urbana, IL; Fairfax, VA; Seattle, WA; and at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA. MMDG made its debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2002 and at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2003 and has since been invited to both festivals many times. The company’s London seasons have garnered two Olivier Awards.
L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato was made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts.
MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS IN AVERY FISHER HALL RENÉE AND ROBERT BELFER MUSIC DIRECTOR LOUIS LANGRÉE July 27-28: Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 begins the Chopin celebration with a pair of gala opening programs that bring together Festival favorite Emanuel Ax performing the early-Romantic master’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe making her Festival debut with arias by Handel and Gluck, as well as the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra (MMFO) led by Louis Langrée in its acclaimed interpretation of two of Mozart’s most popular works, the Overture to La clemenza di Tito and the “Haffner” Symphony.
July 30-31: Dedicated to introducing rising artists, the Festival presents Grammy Award-winning violinist James Ehnes in his anticipated Mostly Mozart debut performing Barber’s Violin Concerto in a program that includes the Bach-Webern arrangement of Ricercare (from The Musical Offering) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major. The Times (London) recently pronounced the 32-year-old violinist “…mercifully free of affectation or vanity, yet blessed with as stunning a technique and as intriguing a musical personality as any… Ehnes seems set to become one of classical music’s biggest names.”
August 10-11: Another exciting artist to watch, who recently made debuts with the Kirov Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, pianist Peter Jablonski makes his Mostly Mozart Festival debut with Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor. The French-inspired program also features Maestro Langrée with the MMFO in Mozart’s beloved “Paris” Symphony, selections from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Bizet’s L’arlésienne.
August 17-18: Last seen at Mostly Mozart in 2009 in a Live From Lincoln Center telecast with the MMFO under Langrée, Festival favorite Joshua Bell returns with frequent collaborator Jeremy Denk in Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings in D minor. This summer’s Festival also marks the anniversary of Schumann’s birth, and in celebration, Langrée will conduct the composer’s Symphony No. 4 in D minor, as well as Weber’s Overture to Der Freischütz.
August 20-21: Maestro Langrée closes the Festival with an all-Mozart program featuring the rarely heard Davidde penitente (The Repentant David), an equally poignant contrafactum of his glorious Mass in C minor, performed by the Concert Chorale of New York with soprano Carolyn Sampson, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, tenor Steve Davislim. The virtuosic pianist Stephen Hough opens the programs with the MMFO in the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K.467.
PROGRAMS WITH GUEST CONDUCTORS August 3-4: Particularly noted for presenting young conductors at the cusp of their careers, including the highly-acclaimed New York debut of Yannick Nézet-Séguin last summer, a major highlight of this season’s Mostly Mozart is the anticipated Festival debut of Pablo Heras-Casado leading Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto in E-flat major and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major. Festival favorite Gil Shaham joins the MMFO with Mozart’s “Turkish” Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major.
August 6-7: Lionel Bringuier, the 22-year-old Frenchman and assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel—who made his praised New York debut leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra last summer—returns this season to conduct Mozart’s Overture to Così fan tutte and “Prague” Symphony. The exciting French pianist David Fray also makes his Mostly Mozart debut with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat, K.482.
August 13-14: Described by The New York Times as “drawing bracing performances” from the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the quintessential Festival favorite Maestro Osmo Vänskä returns with an all-Mozart program featuring the New York orchestral debut of pianist Antti Siirala performing Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466, in concert with Symphony No. 25 in G minor and Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
VISITING CHAMBER ORCHESTRAS AND ENSEMBLES August 2: As part of the Schumann celebration, the acclaimed Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen returns to the Festival with Päavo Jarvi performing two of Schumann’s most admired works, the Overture to Manfred and the “Spring” Symphony, in Alice Tully Hall. Pianist Piotr Anderszewski will join the orchestra in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major. Founded in 1548, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie is one of the world’s oldest orchestras and has had an impressive roster of directors including such luminaries as Heinrich Schütz, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, 20th-century giants Fritz Reiner, Karl Bohm, Herbert Blomstedt, and more recently, Sir Colin Davis, Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Bernard Haitink.
August 16: The incomparable Emerson String Quartet returns to the Festival with an all-Mozart program in Alice Tully Hall including the transcription of Five Fugues for String Quartet from Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, Book II and the “Dissonance” String Quartet in C major. David Shifrin joins the Quartet in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major. After more than 33 years of extensive touring and recording, the renowned Emerson String Quartet performs more than 90 worldwide engagements each season, including an almost yearly residency at Mostly Mozart since 1983, as well as a 30-year residency at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
August 19: Period-instrument specialists the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra will be led by Petra Müllejans, who will serve as both conductor and violinist in a program that includes Haydn’s Concerto for Fortepiano, Violin, and Strings in F major, Mozart’s Symphony No. 16 in C major, as well as Haydn’s Symphony No. 52 in C minor. Mozart’s String Quartet in G major, K.156, completes this program, which imagines a fictitious meeting between Haydn and the young Mozart. Fortepianist Christine Schornsheim will make her Mostly Mozart debut.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC LATE-NIGHT CONCERTS IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE
The popular, sell-out Mostly Mozart Festival series returns with nine engaging, candle-lit concerts designed for intimate listening in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at 10:30pm.
• July 28: As part of the Chopin anniversary, pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa will perform an all-Chopin program including Three Mazukas, Three Nocturnes (Nocturne in F major, Nocturne in G major, and Nocturne in C-sharp minor), and Etudes. Of her Mostly Mozart debut with the MMFO under Festival favorite Osmo Vänskä, The New York Times raved, “Ursuleasa played with a combination of ferocity and clarity that turned the score into a tense drama. Interpretively she was out on the edge, but it was the kind of high-risk performance that makes the warhorses worth revisiting.”
• July 31: Pianist Andrew Armstrong makes his Mostly Mozart Festival debut with violinist James Ehnes (who makes his Festival debut with the MMFO on July 30) in a late-romantic period program featuring Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro, Elgar’s Violin Sonata in E minor, and Ravel’s rhapsodic Tzigane.
• August 7: In her anticipated New York debut, violinist Isabelle Faust with pianist Alexander Melnikov, making his Mostly Mozart debut, play an all-Beethoven program of violin sonatas (Violin Sonata No. 6 in A minor, Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Violin Sonata in G major). Faust and Melnikov’s recent recording of the Beethoven sonatas by Harmondi Mundi was called “stimulating and fascinating” by BBC Music. Faust and Melnikov return the next day, August 8 at 12pm with a special Sunday midday recital at the Walter Reade Theater of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor and Busoni’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in E minor.
• August 11: Acclaimed pianist Peter Jablonski performs Haydn’s Piano Sonata No. 56 in D major, Three Chopin Mazurakas, and Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 in B minor. An advocate for composers from his native Poland, Jablonski will also present the first Mostly Mozart Festival performance of Szymanowski’s Mazurka and Masque, “Don Juan’s Serenade.”
• August 13: As part of this summer’s focus on “Bach and Polyphonies,” artist-in-residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard with three members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, violinist Mats Zetterqvist, flutist Clara Andrada De La Calle, and horn player Jonathan Williams, contrast Bach’s Trio Sonata and Three Canons from The Musical Offering with Carter’s Tri-Tribute, Scrivo in vento, and Riconoscenza, as well as Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn, Piano.
• August 14: A special “Bach and Polyphonies” late-night concert of contemporary music by Ars Nova Copenhagen features the Mostly Mozart premieres of works by five extraordinary composers, including the North American premiere of Ross Edwards’ Sacred Kingfisher Psalms; John Taverner’s Kyrie “Leroy,” Gloria from Mass “The Western Wind,” In trouble and adversity, from In Nomine; Jack Body’s Five Lullabies; David Lang’s For Love Is Strong; William Mundy’s O Lord, the maker of all things; and William Byrd’s Agnus Dei.
• August 17: In his Mostly Mozart debut, pianist Simon Trpceski continues the Chopin celebration with an all-Chopin program featuring Five Mazurkas, Three Waltzes, and Four Nocturnes (Nocturne in A-flat major, Nocturne in B major, Nocturne in F-sharp minor, and Nocturne in C minor).
• August 18: Described by the Daily Telegraph (London) as “a gifted string quartet with something urgent and individual to communicate… [with playing that] combines refinement of shading and nuance with a sense of controlled danger,” the Ebène Quartet makes its Mostly Mozart debut with Mozart’s Divertimento in D major and Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. • August 19: Mostly Mozart Festival favorite, pianist Jeremy Denk performs Liszt’s Dante Sonata, considered to be among the most difficult pieces in the standard repertoire, and Beethoven’s equally challenging Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111.
LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, AND PRE-CONCERT RECITALS To enhance the audience’s experience of performances, the Mostly Mozart Festival will once again include pre- and post-concert lectures and discussions and pre-concert recitals throughout the series. These are free to ticketholders attending the performance. Scheduled to participate in discussions and lectures are musicologists Alan Walker, Elaine Sisman, and Bryan Gilliam. Pre-concert recitals take place one hour prior to the main evening’s performance and this summer include pianist Haochen Zhang (July 30-31); the Emerson String Quartet (August 16), the Saphire Quartet and Christine Schornsheim, fortepiano (August 19). Additional lectures, discussions, and pre-concert recitals will be announced at a future date.
LOUIS LANGRÉE
Since Louis Langrée was appointed Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2002, his tenure has been marked with wide critical acclaim. This season’s highlights include debuts at La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra Comique in Paris, and a return to the Metropolitan Opera with Hamlet starring Simon Keenlyside. Recent conducting engagements include those at the Camerata Salzburg and London Philharmonic, his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and a return to the Aix-en-Provence Festival with soprano Magdalena Kožená, as well as the Metropolitan Opera with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. During the 2007 season, Mr. Langrée made his Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, in addition to return appearances with the Houston and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras and Concerto Köln. Maestro Langrée also debuted with the Mozarteum Orchestra at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival conducting Mozart’s Zaide. As part of Vienna’s 2006 Mozart anniversary celebrations, he conducted Zaide with the Camerata Salzburg directed by Peter Sellars, and a series of performances with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Louis Langrée was Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera for five years and has worked regularly at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dresden Staatsoper, Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Opéra-Bastille and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. His numerous orchestral engagements include the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He also regularly conducts period-instrument orchestras, among them the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, and Le Concert d’Astrée. Maestro Langrée’s extensive discography includes recordings for Virgin Classics, Universal, and Naïve. His most recent release is Mozart’s C-minor Mass with Le Concert d’Astrée on Virgin Classics.
JANE MOSS
Jane Moss was appointed Lincoln Center’s Vice President of Programming in 1992, a position which includes her role as Artistic Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival. In that capacity, she has initiated and led the transformation and expansion of the festival into a multidisciplinary, multilayered, and far-reaching exploration of its namesake genius and his influence. Ms. Moss has also created several major new initiatives at Lincoln Center including the international, multi-genre Lincoln Center Festival, the New Visions series—which links the worlds of the theater and classical music—and Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, which focuses on classic and contemporary expressions of American song. Ms. Moss oversees Great Performers, Lincoln Center’s major season-long classical music series; Midsummer Night Swing; and the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer series. Ms. Moss has played an important role as innovator in classical music presentation, creating programming that embraces season-long, repertoire-focused, and thematic festivals, and projects that combine music, spoken word, and visual art components.
Prior to joining Lincoln Center, Ms. Moss worked as an arts consultant, designing and developing projects and programming initiatives for a variety of foundations and arts organizations, including the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Pew Charitable Trusts. As Executive Director of Meet The Composer, a national organization serving American composers, Ms. Moss created the country’s largest composer commissioning program, as well as a program supporting collaborations between composers and choreographers. In addition, she served as Executive Director of New York’s leading off-Broadway theater company, Playwrights Horizons, and Executive Director of the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York.
ABOUT THE MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival—America’s first indoor summer music festival—was launched as an experiment in 1966. Called Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusively to the music of Mozart. Renamed the Mostly Mozart Festival in 1970, it has become a New York institution and, now in its 44th year, continues to broaden its focus to include works by Mozart’s predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by visiting period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as staged music presentations, opera productions, dance, film, and visual art. The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Over the years, the Orchestra has toured to such notable festivals and venues as Ravinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, Bunkamura in Tokyo, and the Kennedy Center. Conductors who made their New York debuts leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Edo de Waart. Soloists including Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Alicia de Larrocha, Richard Stoltzman, Emanuel Ax, and Garrick Ohlsson have had long associations with the Festival. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist James Galway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida all made their U.S. debuts at the Mostly Mozart Festival.
LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL 2010 JULY 27-AUGUST 21 44th SEASON OFFERS 35 EVENTS INCLUDING CONCERTS, DANCE, RECITALS, AND LECTURES
• Maestro Louis Langrée Leads Ten Concerts with Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
• Pierre-Laurent Aimard Appointed Artist-in-Residence and Leads Six Concerts Exploring “Bach and Polyphonies” Featuring the North American Debut of Ensemble Basiani, the Festival Debuts of Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier, and the Return of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the International Contemporary Ensemble, August 13-16
• Mark Morris Dance Group Celebrates 30th Anniversary with the Choreographer’s Beloved Masterwork, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato, at the David H. Koch Theater August 5-7
• Twelve Additional Mostly Mozart Festival Debuts: Violinists Isabelle Faust (NY Debut) and James Ehnes; Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado; Pianists Antti Siirala (NY Orchestral Debut), David Fray, Peter Jablonski, and Simon Trpceski; Singers Stephanie Blythe, Sasha Cooke, and Steve Davislim; Fortepianist Christine Schornsheim; and the Ebène Quartet New York, NY April 12, 2010—Jane Moss, Artistic Director, today announced the programming for the 44th season of the Mostly Mozart Festival, which runs from July 27 through August 21, 2010 and offers more than 35 events, including concerts, dance, pre-concert recitals, late-night performances, and lectures. Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée, in his eighth season, will conduct the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in ten concerts featuring a wide range of works by Chopin, Schumann, Bach, Gluck, Saint-Saëns, Barber, Beethoven, Bizet, Mendelssohn, and Weber, as well as the Festival’s namesake. Lincoln Center’s venerable four-week summer music festival will present world-renowned artists and returning Festival favorites, as well as fifteen exciting Mostly Mozart debuts by rising artists. Spanning five venues across the campus, this summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival includes a return by French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the year’s artist-in-residence and curator of a unique series of concerts focused on “Bach and Polyphonies.” Tickets will go on sale for all events on June 3.
This summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival fills us with great joy at the many juxtapositions and wide ranging creativity applied to the genius of Mozart, as well as the creators who influenced him and those who followed him,” said Artistic Director Jane Moss. “It is certain to offer sublime and inspiring musical experiences for our summer-in-New York audiences.”
Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 opens on July 27 and 28 with a gala performance by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra under Louis Langrée with pianist Emanuel Ax and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe performing Mozart, Handel, Gluck, and Chopin at Avery Fisher Hall. This season’s Festival marks the 200th anniversary of two composers who were deeply influenced and inspired by Mozart: Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. Six performances pay tribute to these two masters, including two all-Chopin late-night performances of mazurkas, nocturnes, études, and waltzes by pianists Michaela Ursuleasa (July 28) and Simon Trpceski (August 17), and two orchestral performances of Schumann by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (August 2) and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra (August 17–18).
A thematic focus of this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival is a six-part exploration August 13–16 of “Bach and Polyphonies,” curated and led by Artist-in-Residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Traditional Georgian polyphony performed by the esteemed Ensemble Basiani, making its highly anticipated North American debut, will be juxtaposed with contemporary music by composers including Xenakis, Carter, Body, Edwards, Lang, Birtwistle, Berio, and Lachenmann. Featuring the Mostly Mozart Festival debut of Ars Nova Copenhagen and its director Paul Hillier, as well as the return of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the International Contemporary Ensemble, these performances will be interspersed with the music of Bach, widely considered the ultimate standard in musical polyphony.
Since its inception, the Mostly Mozart Festival has been dedicated to presenting and promoting rising artists at important junctures in their careers, and this summer’s Mostly Mozart debuts include those of violinist James Ehnes (July 30–31) and pianists David Fray (August 6–7) and Peter Jablonski (August 10–11), as well as young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado (August 3–4). Pianist Antti Siirala makes his New York orchestral debut on August 13–14. The Festival’s popular A Little Night Music series will feature intimate debut performances at the Kaplan Penthouse by violinist Isabelle Faust (New York debut, August 7), pianist Simon Trpceski (August 17), and the Ebène Quartet (August 18).
Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 highlights include the return of the Mark Morris Dance Group to the David H. Koch Theater August 5-7 with the choreographer’s highly praised landmark work, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato.
Continuing its presentation of the world’s eminent chamber ensembles, this summer’s Festival also features the return to the acclaimed new Alice Tully Hall by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi with pianist Piotr Anderszewski on August 2, the Emerson String Quartet on August 16, and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra on August 19.
More details on the Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 follow. Programs and artists subject to change. Tickets for Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 will go on sale for multi-buy purchases on May 6. Single tickets go on sale beginning June 3. Tickets can be purchased online at MostlyMozart.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or by visiting the Avery Fisher Hall or Alice Tully Hall box offices at Broadway and 65th St. For a Mostly Mozart brochure, call 212.875.5766. For additional information on Mostly Mozart, including audio clips, visit LincolnCenter.org/MozartListeningLounge.
The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, The Shubert Foundation, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly Mozart. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Corporate support is provided by your Tri-State Cadillac Dealers. Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. WNBC/WNJU are Official Broadcast Partners of Lincoln Center, Inc. Continental Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center, Inc. MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. “Summer at Lincoln Center” is sponsored by Diet Pepsi and the Wall Street Journal. The Mostly Mozart Festival is a presentation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA), which serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. As a presenter of more than 400 events annually, LCPA’s programs include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival and Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, LCPA is leading a series of major capital projects on behalf of the resident organization across the campus. Lincoln Center is committed to providing and improving accessibility for people with disabilities. For information, call the Department of Programs and Services for People with Disabilities at 212.875.5375.
BACH & POLYPHONIES Pierre-Laurent Aimard Chamber Orchestra of Europe Ensemble Basiani (North American Debut) Ars Nova Copenhagen (Mostly Mozart Debut) and Paul Hillier (Mostly Mozart Debut) International Contemporary Ensemble Bach Motet, Ligeti & Xenakis, and Georgian Polyphony Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ensemble Basiani August 13, 7:30pm at Alice Tully Hall A Little Night Music: Bach, Carter, and Ligeti Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe members August 13, 10:30pm at the Kaplan Penthouse
Bach Piano and Brandenburg Concerti, and Georgian Polyphony Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Ensemble Basiani August 14, 7:30pm at Alice Tully Hall
A Little Night Music: Taverner, Body, Edwards, Lang, Mundy, and Byrd Ars Nova Copenhagen, Paul Hillier August 14, 10:30pm at the Kaplan Penthouse
Bach Piano and Brandenburg Concerti, Carter, and Boulez Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Chamber Orchestra of Europe August 15, 3pm at Alice Tully Hall Bach, Birtwistle, Lachenmann, Benjamin, and Purcell International Contemporary Ensemble, Ludovic Morlot, Pierre-Laurent Aimard August 16, 7:30pm at the Rose Theater Developed and led by Mostly Mozart Artist-in-Residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a thematic focus of this season’s Festival is a six-part series using Johann Sebastian Bach’s Baroque masterworks as a foundation for a musical and historical exploration of polyphony. Bach’s use of contrapuntal devices, often considered the standard-bearer of polyphonic technique, has inspired the language of composers as diverse as Mozart and Boulez, Ligeti, and Lachenmann. Often considered a genius at using counterpoint as well, Mozart was profoundly influenced by Bach’s musical language, which inspired innumerable works ranging from Die Zauberflöte to Symphony No. 41. Polyphony’s ancient roots are revealed by the all-male Georgian choir Ensemble Basiani in its North American debut. Ars Nova Copenhagen led by Paul Hiller will both make Festival debuts. In a Mostly Mozart first, eight contemporary composers will make their Festival debuts as part of this remarkable series: Xenakis, Carter, Body, Edwards, Lang, Birtwistle, Berio, and Lachenmann.
Widely acclaimed both as a key figure in the new music world and a uniquely significant musical voice in repertoire of the past, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career which transcends traditional boundaries. Performing throughout the world each season with its most significant orchestras and conductors, Mr. Aimard has also in recent seasons been invited by Carnegie Hall, the Wiener Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Opéra National de Paris, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, and Cité de la Musique in Paris to devise groundbreaking carte blanche and residency projects. In these programs, Mr. Aimard performs chamber music, lieder, solo piano, and orchestral works. In 2008, he was Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre’s Messiaen centenary festival in London; in June this year, he assumed the title of Artistic Director at the Aldeburgh Festival, while continuing as artistic partner with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He holds professorships in Cologne and Paris and inspires audiences worldwide in a series of concert lectures and workshops. Mr. Aimard has an extensive discography and has been honored with several recording prizes, including two ECHO Classic Awards and a Grammy. In 2007, he signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft; his first disc under this agreement, Bach: Art of Fugue, was released in 2008, as was his most recent recording of solo piano pieces, Hommage à Messiaen.
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe was founded in 1981 and draws its membership of 50 musicians from 15 countries. The Orchestra has given many concert performances and made recordings of Beethoven and Mozart piano concertos with Pierre-Laurent Aimard to great critical acclaim. In its 28-year history, the entire Orchestra has visited the United States on five separate occasions. Most recently, its string soloists took part in the 2009 Saint Paul’s International Chamber Orchestra Festival, while the wind soloists have also toured the United States on a number of occasions. The COE has won many international prizes for its wide repertoire, including three Gramophone Record of the Year Awards, a 2004 Grammy Award, and the MIDEM 2008 Classical Download Award. In 2007, the COE was appointed one of the European Union’s Cultural Ambassadors, consequently benefiting from significant EU support.
One of Europe’s most exquisite vocal groups and the inheritors of the Georgian choral music legacy, the all-male Ensemble Basiani performs folk and sacred songs, highlighting the world’s oldest polyphonic music tradition. Georgia is home to one of the world’s most fascinating musical cultures. At once ancient and modern, this rich and evolving polyphonic choral heritage is inextricably bound to church, folk traditions, and national identity. The sensuous, exotic sound of Georgian choral music is a rare and thrilling experience. Restless harmonies combine with unexpectedly abrupt shifts in mood to create an unforgettably distinctive language—this is emotive, passionate music of seemingly boundless variety, invention, and sophistication. This incomparable musical legacy melding musical and sacred traditions is one the greatest and most ancient examples of the art of the song.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a uniquely structured chamber music ensemble comprising 30 dynamic and versatile young performers who are dedicated to advancing the music of our time. Through innovative programming, interdisciplinary collaborations, commissions by young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues, ICE brings together new music and new audiences. ICE was founded in 2001 and has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards, and performing over 50 concerts a year in the U.S. and abroad. Recent engagements include headline performances at the Musica Nova Festival (Helsinki, Finland), the opening ceremonies of the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, and multiple engagements at Miller Theatre, including the U.S. premiere of Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia. In addition to ICE’s performances at major venues throughout the world, the ensemble has self-produced eight large scale contemporary music festivals in venues as wide-ranging as nightclubs, galleries, and public spaces, many of which are free and open to the public. ICE has released critically acclaimed recordings on the Bridge, Naxos, and New Focus labels. Highlights of the 2009–10 season include Composer Portraits of Xenakis and Kaija Saariaho at Miller Theatre and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a collaboration with the conductor Ludovic Morlot at Performance Space 122, new ICE-produced series at the Tank and at Le Poisson Rouge, the Lincoln Center Festival series Varèse: (R)evolutions, and the recording of an all-Xenakis album on Mode Records with Steve Schick.
A champion of music by emerging composers, ICE has given over 400 world premieres to date. In 2004, ICE launched the 21st Century Young Composers Project, a worldwide call for entries by composers under the age of 35, which has culminated in the world premieres of works by rising young composers in 27 different countries.
30th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP WITH HANDEL’S L’ALLEGRO
Mark Morris Dance Group Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato August 5-7, 7:30pm David H. Koch Theater Kicking off the 30th anniversary celebration of one of America’s most beloved modern dance companies, groundbreaking choreographer Mark Morris returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival with three performances of his landmark work, Handel’s L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato (“The Merry Man, the Thoughtful Man, and the Moderate Man”) on August 5-7 at the newly renovated David H. Koch Theater. Considered “one of the very greatest dances of the late 20th century” by the Boston Herald, L’Allegro will feature conductor Jane Glover, sopranos Christine Brandes and Lisa Saffer, tenor John McVeigh, and bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams.
Working with music that composer George Frideric Handel set to poems of John Milton in 1740, Morris crafted a celebratory work that explores the extroverted, introspective, and rational natures of mankind. Since its premiere in 1988, the work has been proclaimed an extraordinary work of contemporary dance—a work that “captures the intensity and wondrous bafflement of human experience, our ravenous animal nature and spiritual calm, the absurdity and amazement, the joy and piercing loneliness and drive to connect,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Making him a perfect collaborator for the Mostly Mozart Festival, Mark Morris is well known for the musicality of his works. Dubbed the “Mozart of modern dance,” by the Washington Post, Morris has created close to 100 dances for the MMDG, and more than two dozen commissions for major ballet and opera companies around the globe. The Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) was formed in 1980 and gave its first performance that year in New York City. The company’s touring schedule steadily expanded to include cities in the U.S. and Europe, and in 1986, it made its first national television program for the PBS series Dance in America. In 1988, MMDG was invited to become the national dance company of Belgium, and spent three years in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The company returned to the United States in 1991 as one of the world’s leading dance companies, performing across the U.S. and at major international festivals. It has maintained and strengthened its ties to several cities around the world, most notably its West Coast home, Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA. It appears regularly in Boston, MA; Urbana, IL; Fairfax, VA; Seattle, WA; and at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA. MMDG made its debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2002 and at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2003 and has since been invited to both festivals many times. The company’s London seasons have garnered two Olivier Awards.
L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato was made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts.
MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS IN AVERY FISHER HALL RENÉE AND ROBERT BELFER MUSIC DIRECTOR LOUIS LANGRÉE July 27-28: Mostly Mozart Festival 2010 begins the Chopin celebration with a pair of gala opening programs that bring together Festival favorite Emanuel Ax performing the early-Romantic master’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe making her Festival debut with arias by Handel and Gluck, as well as the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra (MMFO) led by Louis Langrée in its acclaimed interpretation of two of Mozart’s most popular works, the Overture to La clemenza di Tito and the “Haffner” Symphony.
July 30-31: Dedicated to introducing rising artists, the Festival presents Grammy Award-winning violinist James Ehnes in his anticipated Mostly Mozart debut performing Barber’s Violin Concerto in a program that includes the Bach-Webern arrangement of Ricercare (from The Musical Offering) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major. The Times (London) recently pronounced the 32-year-old violinist “…mercifully free of affectation or vanity, yet blessed with as stunning a technique and as intriguing a musical personality as any… Ehnes seems set to become one of classical music’s biggest names.”
August 10-11: Another exciting artist to watch, who recently made debuts with the Kirov Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, pianist Peter Jablonski makes his Mostly Mozart Festival debut with Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor. The French-inspired program also features Maestro Langrée with the MMFO in Mozart’s beloved “Paris” Symphony, selections from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Bizet’s L’arlésienne.
August 17-18: Last seen at Mostly Mozart in 2009 in a Live From Lincoln Center telecast with the MMFO under Langrée, Festival favorite Joshua Bell returns with frequent collaborator Jeremy Denk in Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings in D minor. This summer’s Festival also marks the anniversary of Schumann’s birth, and in celebration, Langrée will conduct the composer’s Symphony No. 4 in D minor, as well as Weber’s Overture to Der Freischütz.
August 20-21: Maestro Langrée closes the Festival with an all-Mozart program featuring the rarely heard Davidde penitente (The Repentant David), an equally poignant contrafactum of his glorious Mass in C minor, performed by the Concert Chorale of New York with soprano Carolyn Sampson, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, tenor Steve Davislim. The virtuosic pianist Stephen Hough opens the programs with the MMFO in the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K.467.
PROGRAMS WITH GUEST CONDUCTORS August 3-4: Particularly noted for presenting young conductors at the cusp of their careers, including the highly-acclaimed New York debut of Yannick Nézet-Séguin last summer, a major highlight of this season’s Mostly Mozart is the anticipated Festival debut of Pablo Heras-Casado leading Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto in E-flat major and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major. Festival favorite Gil Shaham joins the MMFO with Mozart’s “Turkish” Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major.
August 6-7: Lionel Bringuier, the 22-year-old Frenchman and assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel—who made his praised New York debut leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra last summer—returns this season to conduct Mozart’s Overture to Così fan tutte and “Prague” Symphony. The exciting French pianist David Fray also makes his Mostly Mozart debut with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat, K.482.
August 13-14: Described by The New York Times as “drawing bracing performances” from the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the quintessential Festival favorite Maestro Osmo Vänskä returns with an all-Mozart program featuring the New York orchestral debut of pianist Antti Siirala performing Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466, in concert with Symphony No. 25 in G minor and Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
VISITING CHAMBER ORCHESTRAS AND ENSEMBLES August 2: As part of the Schumann celebration, the acclaimed Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen returns to the Festival with Päavo Jarvi performing two of Schumann’s most admired works, the Overture to Manfred and the “Spring” Symphony, in Alice Tully Hall. Pianist Piotr Anderszewski will join the orchestra in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major. Founded in 1548, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie is one of the world’s oldest orchestras and has had an impressive roster of directors including such luminaries as Heinrich Schütz, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, 20th-century giants Fritz Reiner, Karl Bohm, Herbert Blomstedt, and more recently, Sir Colin Davis, Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Bernard Haitink.
August 16: The incomparable Emerson String Quartet returns to the Festival with an all-Mozart program in Alice Tully Hall including the transcription of Five Fugues for String Quartet from Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, Book II and the “Dissonance” String Quartet in C major. David Shifrin joins the Quartet in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major. After more than 33 years of extensive touring and recording, the renowned Emerson String Quartet performs more than 90 worldwide engagements each season, including an almost yearly residency at Mostly Mozart since 1983, as well as a 30-year residency at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
August 19: Period-instrument specialists the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra will be led by Petra Müllejans, who will serve as both conductor and violinist in a program that includes Haydn’s Concerto for Fortepiano, Violin, and Strings in F major, Mozart’s Symphony No. 16 in C major, as well as Haydn’s Symphony No. 52 in C minor. Mozart’s String Quartet in G major, K.156, completes this program, which imagines a fictitious meeting between Haydn and the young Mozart. Fortepianist Christine Schornsheim will make her Mostly Mozart debut.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC LATE-NIGHT CONCERTS IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE
The popular, sell-out Mostly Mozart Festival series returns with nine engaging, candle-lit concerts designed for intimate listening in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at 10:30pm.
• July 28: As part of the Chopin anniversary, pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa will perform an all-Chopin program including Three Mazukas, Three Nocturnes (Nocturne in F major, Nocturne in G major, and Nocturne in C-sharp minor), and Etudes. Of her Mostly Mozart debut with the MMFO under Festival favorite Osmo Vänskä, The New York Times raved, “Ursuleasa played with a combination of ferocity and clarity that turned the score into a tense drama. Interpretively she was out on the edge, but it was the kind of high-risk performance that makes the warhorses worth revisiting.”
• July 31: Pianist Andrew Armstrong makes his Mostly Mozart Festival debut with violinist James Ehnes (who makes his Festival debut with the MMFO on July 30) in a late-romantic period program featuring Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro, Elgar’s Violin Sonata in E minor, and Ravel’s rhapsodic Tzigane.
• August 7: In her anticipated New York debut, violinist Isabelle Faust with pianist Alexander Melnikov, making his Mostly Mozart debut, play an all-Beethoven program of violin sonatas (Violin Sonata No. 6 in A minor, Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Violin Sonata in G major). Faust and Melnikov’s recent recording of the Beethoven sonatas by Harmondi Mundi was called “stimulating and fascinating” by BBC Music. Faust and Melnikov return the next day, August 8 at 12pm with a special Sunday midday recital at the Walter Reade Theater of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor and Busoni’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in E minor.
• August 11: Acclaimed pianist Peter Jablonski performs Haydn’s Piano Sonata No. 56 in D major, Three Chopin Mazurakas, and Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 in B minor. An advocate for composers from his native Poland, Jablonski will also present the first Mostly Mozart Festival performance of Szymanowski’s Mazurka and Masque, “Don Juan’s Serenade.”
• August 13: As part of this summer’s focus on “Bach and Polyphonies,” artist-in-residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard with three members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, violinist Mats Zetterqvist, flutist Clara Andrada De La Calle, and horn player Jonathan Williams, contrast Bach’s Trio Sonata and Three Canons from The Musical Offering with Carter’s Tri-Tribute, Scrivo in vento, and Riconoscenza, as well as Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn, Piano.
• August 14: A special “Bach and Polyphonies” late-night concert of contemporary music by Ars Nova Copenhagen features the Mostly Mozart premieres of works by five extraordinary composers, including the North American premiere of Ross Edwards’ Sacred Kingfisher Psalms; John Taverner’s Kyrie “Leroy,” Gloria from Mass “The Western Wind,” In trouble and adversity, from In Nomine; Jack Body’s Five Lullabies; David Lang’s For Love Is Strong; William Mundy’s O Lord, the maker of all things; and William Byrd’s Agnus Dei.
• August 17: In his Mostly Mozart debut, pianist Simon Trpceski continues the Chopin celebration with an all-Chopin program featuring Five Mazurkas, Three Waltzes, and Four Nocturnes (Nocturne in A-flat major, Nocturne in B major, Nocturne in F-sharp minor, and Nocturne in C minor).
• August 18: Described by the Daily Telegraph (London) as “a gifted string quartet with something urgent and individual to communicate… [with playing that] combines refinement of shading and nuance with a sense of controlled danger,” the Ebène Quartet makes its Mostly Mozart debut with Mozart’s Divertimento in D major and Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. • August 19: Mostly Mozart Festival favorite, pianist Jeremy Denk performs Liszt’s Dante Sonata, considered to be among the most difficult pieces in the standard repertoire, and Beethoven’s equally challenging Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111.
LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, AND PRE-CONCERT RECITALS To enhance the audience’s experience of performances, the Mostly Mozart Festival will once again include pre- and post-concert lectures and discussions and pre-concert recitals throughout the series. These are free to ticketholders attending the performance. Scheduled to participate in discussions and lectures are musicologists Alan Walker, Elaine Sisman, and Bryan Gilliam. Pre-concert recitals take place one hour prior to the main evening’s performance and this summer include pianist Haochen Zhang (July 30-31); the Emerson String Quartet (August 16), the Saphire Quartet and Christine Schornsheim, fortepiano (August 19). Additional lectures, discussions, and pre-concert recitals will be announced at a future date.
LOUIS LANGRÉE
Since Louis Langrée was appointed Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2002, his tenure has been marked with wide critical acclaim. This season’s highlights include debuts at La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra Comique in Paris, and a return to the Metropolitan Opera with Hamlet starring Simon Keenlyside. Recent conducting engagements include those at the Camerata Salzburg and London Philharmonic, his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and a return to the Aix-en-Provence Festival with soprano Magdalena Kožená, as well as the Metropolitan Opera with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. During the 2007 season, Mr. Langrée made his Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, in addition to return appearances with the Houston and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras and Concerto Köln. Maestro Langrée also debuted with the Mozarteum Orchestra at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival conducting Mozart’s Zaide. As part of Vienna’s 2006 Mozart anniversary celebrations, he conducted Zaide with the Camerata Salzburg directed by Peter Sellars, and a series of performances with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Louis Langrée was Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera for five years and has worked regularly at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dresden Staatsoper, Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Opéra-Bastille and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. His numerous orchestral engagements include the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He also regularly conducts period-instrument orchestras, among them the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, and Le Concert d’Astrée. Maestro Langrée’s extensive discography includes recordings for Virgin Classics, Universal, and Naïve. His most recent release is Mozart’s C-minor Mass with Le Concert d’Astrée on Virgin Classics.
JANE MOSS
Jane Moss was appointed Lincoln Center’s Vice President of Programming in 1992, a position which includes her role as Artistic Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival. In that capacity, she has initiated and led the transformation and expansion of the festival into a multidisciplinary, multilayered, and far-reaching exploration of its namesake genius and his influence. Ms. Moss has also created several major new initiatives at Lincoln Center including the international, multi-genre Lincoln Center Festival, the New Visions series—which links the worlds of the theater and classical music—and Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, which focuses on classic and contemporary expressions of American song. Ms. Moss oversees Great Performers, Lincoln Center’s major season-long classical music series; Midsummer Night Swing; and the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer series. Ms. Moss has played an important role as innovator in classical music presentation, creating programming that embraces season-long, repertoire-focused, and thematic festivals, and projects that combine music, spoken word, and visual art components.
Prior to joining Lincoln Center, Ms. Moss worked as an arts consultant, designing and developing projects and programming initiatives for a variety of foundations and arts organizations, including the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Pew Charitable Trusts. As Executive Director of Meet The Composer, a national organization serving American composers, Ms. Moss created the country’s largest composer commissioning program, as well as a program supporting collaborations between composers and choreographers. In addition, she served as Executive Director of New York’s leading off-Broadway theater company, Playwrights Horizons, and Executive Director of the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York.
ABOUT THE MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival—America’s first indoor summer music festival—was launched as an experiment in 1966. Called Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusively to the music of Mozart. Renamed the Mostly Mozart Festival in 1970, it has become a New York institution and, now in its 44th year, continues to broaden its focus to include works by Mozart’s predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by visiting period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as staged music presentations, opera productions, dance, film, and visual art. The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Over the years, the Orchestra has toured to such notable festivals and venues as Ravinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, Bunkamura in Tokyo, and the Kennedy Center. Conductors who made their New York debuts leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Edo de Waart. Soloists including Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Alicia de Larrocha, Richard Stoltzman, Emanuel Ax, and Garrick Ohlsson have had long associations with the Festival. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist James Galway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida all made their U.S. debuts at the Mostly Mozart Festival.
FEATURED JOBS
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