“W.A. Mozart: A Birthday Celebration Performance" at the Sound Conservatory -- January 27.
Saturday, January 27, 5:30 p.m.
The Sound Conservatory, 504 17th Street, Moline IL
Held in honor of his birth on January 27, 1756, Moline's Sound Conservatory will, 268 years later, host a special anniversary event in W. A. Mozart: A Birthday Celebration Performance, an unforgettable evening filled with breathtaking performances by bassoonist Kian Hyatt, flutist Paul Mizzi, horn player Marc Zyla, baritone Nathan Windt, and pianists Sheila Doak, Marian Lee, and Andrzej Kozlowski.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period., and despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his output admired for what Grove Music Online called its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture."
Born in Salzburg, then in the Holy Roman Empire and currently in Austria, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position.
While visiting Vienna in 1781, Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years there, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas. His Requiem was largely unfinished by the time of his 1791 death at the age of 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologized, including in the Tony-winning play and Oscar-winning movie Amadeus.
Mozart's best-admired work is in opera, piano concerto, piano sonata, symphony, string quartet, and string quintet. He also, however, wrote many violin sonatas, and other forms of chamber music, violin concertos, and other concertos for one or more solo instruments, masses, and other religious music, organ music, masonic music, and numerous dances, marches, divertimentos, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment. His most highly regarded operas, meanwhile, include The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tuttee.
The concert event W.A. Mozart: A Birthday Celebration Performance will take place in Moline on January 27, admission to the 5:30 p.m. performance is $10-15, and the scheduled repertoire will feature Mozart's Bassoon Concerto K. 191, Horn Concerto K. 447, Piano Trio No. 8 K. 564, and Windt performing a series of operatic excerpts. For more information and tickets, visit SoundConservatory.com.
