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Bard Music Festival

Program One • The Many Facets of Mozart

August 7

Add to Calendar2026-08-07 7:00 pm2026-08-07 7:00 pmEDTProgram One • The Many Facets of MozartFisher Center, Sosnoff Theater,

The 36th Bard Music Festival launches with Program One, “The Many Facets of Mozart.” Harnessing Bard’s unusual ability to integrate orchestral, vocal, and chamber works within a single event, this program will be presented with commentary by Leon Botstein. Devoted entirely to Mozart’s own music, it spans the breadth of the composer’s short career, from the pioneering four-hands duet he wrote as a teenager to Eine kleine deutsche Kantate, a work reflecting his commitment to Freemasonry, written shortly before his death. Other featured works include the masterly Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds, which he famously considered his best composition; Ch’io mi scordi di te?, the virtuosic opera aria-cum-piano concerto that he performed with The Marriage of Figaro’s first Susanna; the popular Sinfonia concertante in E-flat, which showcases his solo string writing; and his delightful “Paris” Symphony, composed in the French capital during the final years of the Ancien Regime.

Program

7 pm • Performance with commentary (plus livestream); with Joshua Blue, tenor; Katrina Galka, soprano; Gina Cuffari, bassoon; Shari Hoffman, clarinet; Alexandra Knoll, oboe; Karl Kramer, horn; Grace Park, violin; Barry Shiffman, viola; Danny Driver, Kayo Iwama, Piers Lane, and Anna Polonsky, piano; The Orchestra Now, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–91)
Sonata in D Major, K381 (1772)
Symphony No. 31 in D Major, “Paris,” K297 (1778)
Sinfonia concertante in E-flat Major, K364 (1779)
Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, K452 (1784)
Ch’io mi scordi di te?, K505 (1786)
Kleine deutsche Kantate, K619 (1791)

Artwork: Posthumous portrait of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, painted by Barbara Krafft at the request of Joseph Sonnleithner in 1819; Wikimedia Commons

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