Lincoln Center Extends Mostly Mozart Festival Music Director Louis Langrée's Contract Through 2023

On the eve of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra's (MMFO) opening performances at the 2019 Mostly Mozart Festival, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss has announced that Lincoln Center has extended the contract of Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée through the summer of 2023. Langrée has held the position since 2003, fostering the Festival Orchestra's profile as an established ensemble and steadfast presence on the Lincoln Center campus, furthering its scope of repertoire beyond music of the classical era, and heightening its reputation as one of America's premier chamber orchestras. Langrée made his Mostly Mozart Festival debut in 1998 and began his tenure as music director in 2003. 2023 will be his twenty-first season in the role. American Express is the lead sponsor of the Mostly Mozart Festival.

"Mostly Mozart has evolved in recent decades from presenting exclusively Mozart-themed concerts into an international multi-disciplinary arts festival featuring new work and acclaimed productions across all genres," said Jane Moss. "The musical heart of the festival, though, remains the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. Louis Langrée is beloved and respected by the orchestra's musicians as well as our audiences-not only for the extraordinary musicianship, intellect, and creativity he brings to the podium, but also for his charm and his generosity of spirit. Louis has been the perfect musical partner, crafting ingenious programs inspired and infused with the essence of Mozart. We are so pleased that he has agreed to extend his contract through the 2023 season, and we look forward to many more musical adventures together."

This summer marks Langrée's 17th year as the Festival's music director, and over the course of his tenure, he has guided the MMFO's ascent to ever-higher artistic levels, expanding the scope of repertoire well beyond the classical period from Jean-Baptiste Lully to Magnus Lindberg, incorporating early works from the Baroque, and delving into the 20th and 21st centuries.

"I feel incredibly humbled, proud, and grateful to be the music director at this exceptional Festival, and I am thrilled to extend my commitment to the orchestra, to Jane Moss, and to Lincoln Center," said Louis Langrée. "There is a special intuitiveness, camaraderie, and intimacy with this orchestra that develops over time as we continuously cultivate our own unique identity as an ensemble. Our musicians come from major symphony, ballet, and opera orchestras from all over the country as well as from chamber music and even from Broadway, so each has a different perspective to bring. After spending the regular season with their 'home' orchestras, it is always a special moment when we first meet again to build on the music we have made in previous summers."

The MMFO's first appearance at the 2019 Mostly Mozart Festival is as part of the Barrie Kosky and Berlin Komische Oper production of The Magic Flute at the David H. Koch Theater. The orchestra then moves back to its David Geffen Hall home, welcoming an array of acclaimed soloists and guest conductors for six pairs of concerts. Among them are returning artists and longtime friends of the festival including Joshua Bell, Martin Helmchen, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Andrew Manze, Gianandrea Noseda, and Steven Osborne. Making their Mostly Mozart Festival debuts are Vilde Frang, Pekka Kuusisto, and Knut Erik Sundquist. Langrée and members of the orchestra will also venture beyond the Lincoln Center campus for a special performance of Mozart's Gran Partita in St. Paul's Chapel at Trinity Church, Wall Street. All MMFO concerts at David Geffen Hall are complemented by pre-concert performances, several of which are thematically paired or are connected by artists.

Programs this summer run the gamut from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons to Alfred Schnittke's Moz-Art à la Haydn, with music of Haydn, Shostakovich, Bartók, and others, as well as, of course, a healthy dose of Mozart. Langrée is well-regarded for the ingenuity and care with which he curates programs, and special highlights this summer include the continuation of his four-summer exploration of the Brahms symphonies as well as full evenings with inter-connected programming. As an example, on July 30, a tribute to Clara Schumann begins with a pre-concert recital of her music paired with that of her husband; a Mozart piano concerto to be performed by Martin Helmchen as soloist with the Festival Orchestra features Clara Schumann's cadenza; the Brahms Symphony No. 3 (one of her favorite works); and, a late night soirée with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Myra Huang matches Clara Schumann's work with her contemporaries Alma Mahler and Fanny (Mendelssohn) Hensel.

Langrée-who made his Lincoln Center and New York debuts conducting the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on August 4 and 5, 1998 with soloists Joshua Bell and Leif Ove Andsnes-will have conducted 167 performances with the MMFO by the end of this summer. He is a regular presence on campus and has taught master classes at The Juilliard School and in 2016, brought his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to perform an all-Tchaikovsky program on the Great Performers series. He has conducted more than 50 performances at the Metropolitan Opera House beginning with Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride in 2007 and including productions of Don Giovanni, La bohème, Hamlet, Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Carmen. In March 2020, he will make his New York Philharmonic debut conducting a program of Debussy, Ravel, and Scriabin.

In addition to his MMFO post, Louis Langrée has been the Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 2013 and has an active international presence, having conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Czech Philharmonic, Budapest Festival, Sao Paulo, and NHK Symphony orchestras. He has also conducted at La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra Bastille, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dresden Staatsoper, and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. Langrée is committed to presenting the music of our time, and he and the Cincinnati Symphony have commissioned 38 new works in his tenure there, including works by Julia Adolphe, Daníel Bjarnason, David Lang, and Caroline Shaw. For a full biography, please see link.

Programs for the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra Follow.

MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
Louis Langrée, Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director
2019 SCHEDULE

For the complete Mostly Mozart Festival schedule, visit here.
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The Magic Flute (New York production premiere)
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Friday, July 19, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 7:00 pm
David H. Koch Theater
Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
Louis Langrée, conductor
Maureen McKay/Vera-Lotte Böcker (Pamina)
Julien Behr/Aaron Blake (Tamino)
Audrey Luna/Aleksandra Olczyk (Queen of the Night)
Dimitry Ivashchenko/Wenwei Zhang (Sarastro)
Rodion Pogossov/Evan Hughes (Papageno)
Talya Lieberman (Papagena)
Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky, co-directors
Paul Barritt, animation
1927 (Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt) and Barrie Kosky, concept
Esther Bialas, stage and costume design
Diego Leetz, lighting design
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
A production of the Komische Oper Berlin

Mozart's beloved comedic opera as reimagined by co-directors Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky and animator Paul Barritt has its New York production premiere, with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra led by Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée. In this spectacularly vivid production, singers from Komische Oper Berlin interact with the magical scenery: hand-drawn illustrations, animated and projected, come to life on a massive set. The result is a kaleidoscopic homage to 1920s silent films and Weimar cabaret combined with whimsically macabre fairy tale imagery.

Related program:
Film: "The Great Buster: A Celebration" at the Walter Reade Theater on July 16 at 7:30pm. A new documentary from director Peter Bogdanovich pays tribute to Buster Keaton, whose physical comedy and trademark deadpan expression inform the character Papageno in Barrie Kosky's staging of "The Magic Flute".
Panel discussion: Mozart's Magic Flute at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 20 at 3pm. Scholars Catherine Coppola, Thomas Bauman, and Martin Nedbal from the Mozart Society of America uncover and illuminate fascinating aspects of "Die Zauberflöte".

Presented in association with the Mozart Society of America

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Eroica Symphony
Tuesday, July 23, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Andrew Manze, conductor
Vilde Frang, violin (MMF debut)
All-Beethoven program
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 ("Eroica")

Andrew Manze, beloved by Mostly Mozart audiences and musicians alike, leads the orchestra in an all-Beethoven concert. Beethoven was a revolutionary, experimenting with melody, harmony, and structure, and pushed the boundaries of the Classical period well past the comfort zone of his peers. Beethoven profoundly believed that the mission of an artist was to elevate civilization, and his Third Symphony is the manifestation through music of his humanistic and egalitarian vision of the world. Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, it was originally meant as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte and as a narrative of a hero's journey. While the first movement depicts conflict and heroic battles, the second conjures the pomp and circumstance of a stately funeral, leading to the frenetic hope of a new regime in the third. Beethoven ends the work in a triumphant fugue, with his hero imagining an idealistic new world order. Manze is joined for the concerto by newcomer Vilde Frang, a young violinist becoming known for the emotional sincerity, clear interpretation, inspired imagination, natural ease, and joy that she brings to her performances.

Related programs:
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen Hall on July 23 and 24 at 6:30 pm with pianist Drew Petersen, performing Schubert's Fantasy in C major, D.760 ("Wandererfantasie")
A Little Night Music at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 24 at 10:00 pm with pianist Michael Brown, performing Beethoven's Eroica Variations and other works.

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The Four Seasons
Friday, July 26, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, July 27, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Andrew Manze, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin (MMF debut)
Knut Erik Sundquist, bass (New York debut, MMF debut)
Bartók (arr. Willner): Romanian Folk Dances for string orchestra
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Traditional music from Finland, Norway, and Hungary

Mozart delighted audiences with his ability to improvise cadenzas and incidental music, and in that same custom, violinist Pekka Kuusisto and double bassist Knut Erik Sundquist infuse Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with the traditional folk tunes of Norway, Finland, and Hungary.

Related programs:
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen Hall on July 26 and 27 at 6:30pm with the Neave Trio, performing Bragato's arrangement of Piazzolla's "Four Seasons of Buenos Aires"
A Little Night Music at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 26 at 10:00 pm with vocalist Nora Fischer and electric guitarist Marnix Dorrestein, performing works of Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Mozart and more
A Little Night Music at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 27 at 10:00 pm with violinist Pekka Kuusisto and double-bassist Knut Erik Sundquist, interspersing Bach with traditional Scandinavian folk music.

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FREE CONCERT
Mozart's Gran Partita
Saturday, July 27, 2019 at 3:00 pm
St. Paul's Chapel of Trinity Church Wall Street, Broadway and Fulton Street
Louis Langrée, conductor
Members of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
Mozart: Serenade for Winds in B-flat major, K.361 ("Gran Partita")

Louis Langrée, members of the wind section of the MMFO, and special guests step off campus to perform Mozart's beloved Gran Partita in a sacred setting.

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Mozart & Brahms
Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Louis Langrée, conductor
Martin Helmchen, piano
Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni, K.527
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90

From its very first dramatic chord, the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni signaled a change, paving a new path for and serving as inspiration for the Romantic composers who came after him. Brahms, an avid collector of Mozart's manuscripts, approached composition from a pianist and chamber musician's point of view. And while in present times we are accustomed to hearing his symphonies performed expansively by a large symphony orchestra, in Brahms's time they were often performed by ensembles the size of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In this, the third of a four-year cycle of the Brahms symphonies, Louis Langrée explores this fascinating juxtaposition of approaches. Here, a smaller complement of musicians creates the conditions for a musical dialogue in which different colors emerge, as though the musicians are playing chamber music. Further connecting Brahms to Mozart is soloist Martin Helmchen, who will perform Clara Schumann's cadenza in the pre-Romantic Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in recognition of her contributions to the canon and her personal connections to Brahms as both his muse and the widow of his mentor.

Related programs:
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen Hall on July 30 and 31 at 6:30pm with pianist Mara Dobresco, performing works by Mozart, Clara Schumann, and Robert Schumann
A Little Night Music at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 30 at 10:00 pm with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Myra Huang, performing works of Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, and Fanny (Mendelssohn) Hensel
A Little Night Music at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on July 31 at 10:00 pm with pianist Martin Helmchen, performing Liszt and Franck.

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Beethoven & Schubert
Friday, August 2, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D.944 ("Great")

Beethoven the innovator caused quite a stir with the debut of his Fourth Piano Concerto, defying all conventional practices of the day by starting with the solo piano instead of the customary orchestral introduction. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, known for his playful virtuosity, joins guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda for the concerto, now considered an iconic staple of the piano repertoire. Noseda, a regular presence at Mostly Mozart and across the Lincoln Center campus, has paired this great work of Beethoven with the "Great" Symphony of Schubert-who quotes Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the final movement of his own.

Related program:
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen Hall on August 2 and 3 at 6:30 pm with Pierre-Laurent Aimard

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Joshua Bell Plays Dvo?ák
Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Wednesday, August 7, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Louis Langrée, conductor
Joshua Bell, violin
Mozart: Symphony No. 38 in D major, K.504 ("Prague")
Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Dvo?ák: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53

It wouldn't be the Mostly Mozart Festival without Joshua Bell, and in this Bohemian-influenced program, he turns to Dvo?ák's demanding Violin Concerto. Calling for virtuosity and flair, it was written for the legendary Joseph Joachim (at the suggestion of Brahms) and has been compared to Mozart's Queen of the Night aria, beginning immediately in the highest register of the instrument following a brief orchestral introduction. Mozart's Symphony No. 38 had its premiere during his first visit to Prague, sparking his great affinity for the city and establishing a relationship that led to his work there and the premieres of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito. Kodaly lived in Galánta, a northern Hungarian town that is now part of Slovakia, and his dances are inspired by personal memories of a famous Gypsy band and their spirited, rollicking folk tunes from his childhood.

Related programs
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen on August 6 and 7 at 6:30 pm with Brooklyn Rider performing works by Schulhoff, Dvo?ák, and Ljova. Brooklyn Rider's performance is made possible in part by Linda and Stuart Nelson.
A Little Night Music in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on August 6 at 10:00 pm with Lucas and Arthur Jussen performing works for piano four-hands: Mozart's Sonata K.381 (who performed them originally with his sister Nannerl), Schubert's Fantasie in F minor (dedicated to his pupil Karoline Esterhazy), and Smit's Divertimento for piano four hands

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Mozart à la Haydn
Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 7:30 pm
David Geffen Hall
Louis Langrée, conductor
Steven Osborne, piano
Haydn: Overture in D major, Hob. Ia:7
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102
Schnittke: Moz-Art à la Haydn
Mozart: Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385 ("Haffner")

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra's 2019 season ends on a lighthearted note, with four works that are more connected than they may seem at first glance. Pianist Steven Osborne performs the cheerful piano concerto Shostakovich composed for his son Maxim's 19th birthday. Maxim, then a budding pianist, is said to have been the inspiration for the tongue-in-cheek inclusion of the Hanon piano exercises in the final movement. Schnittke displays a similar sense of humor in his Moz-Art à la Haydn, in which every note in the score has been repurposed from either Haydn or Mozart. Beginning in darkness, the work emulates Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony and, among other excerpts, quotes Mozart's Symphony No. 40, incorporating stage-play among the musicians, and, like the Farewell, leaving the conductor alone at the end. Mozart's beloved "Haffner" Symphony, one of the composer's most challenging, yet fun, works, is a joyous conclusion to the 2019 Festival.

Related programs:
Pre-concert recitals in David Geffen Hall on August 9 and 10 at 6:30 pm by pianist Yi-Nuo Wang performing works of Haydn and Rachmaninoff
A Little Night Music in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on August 9 at 10 pm by pianist Steven Osborne performing Schubert's Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960

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Now in its 53rd year, the Mostly Mozart Festival is one of several annual summer events offered by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts that activate the campus's indoor and outdoor spaces. Midsummer Night Swing (June 25-July 13) brings top bands from around the world, dance instructors, and New York's social dance community to Damrosch Park for three weeks of dancing under the stars. Lincoln Center Out of Doors (July 25-August 11) presents a wide array of free performances, including music, dance, spoken word, film, and more, reflecting the diversity of New York City. The David Rubenstein Atrium's robust calendar of free events, including world-class performances, illuminating conversations, dance parties, kids' programs, and more, also continues through the summer.

Tickets for the Mostly Mozart Festival can be purchased online at MostlyMozartFestival.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or by visiting the David Geffen Hall or Alice Tully Hall Box Offices.