Mozart Festival Offers Two In-Person Performances in April

Performances will be held on April 16 and 18 in New Britain and Hartford

NEW BRITAIN, CT - The Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra will present two in-person performances this month with the Mozart & Friends Mini Festival. The Festival will include works from three premiere Classical era composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges; and Johann Christian Bach. Performances will be held on Friday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Trinity-On-Main Arts Center in New Britain and on Sunday, April 18, at 6:00 p.m. at Cyril & Methodius Church in Hartford. Each concert will feature different programming.

“We are excited to be returning to more in-person performances, and the Mozart & Friends Festival will be a wonderful way to reconnect with each other. We restarted our live performances last August, and we have played for small live audiences since then, but perhaps this program will be the beginning of a return to ‘normal’,” said Adrian Sylveen, Artistic Director of the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. “These three composers are renowned for the classic beauty of their work. We hope our audiences will appreciate their music’s magnificent simplicity. It will be a joy for us to perform.”

Born in Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer during the Classical era. Considered to be among the greatest classical composers in history, Mozart composed more than 600 works - many of which were recognized for their extraordinary achievements to symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic and choral music. During his years in Vienna, Mozart composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, operas and portions of his unfinished “Requiem” at the time of his death at age 35.

Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a French-African Classical era composer, virtuoso violinist and a conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the first known classical composer of African ancestry. He composed numerous string quartets and other instrumental pieces, including operas such as L'Amant anonyme (The Anonymous Lover).

German Classical era composer Johann Christian Bach was the 18th eighteenth child of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. During his career, he composed cantatas, chamber music, keyboard and orchestral works, operas and symphonies and made significant contributions to the development of the new sonata principle. He is also noted for influencing the concerto style of a young Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart, with many scholars calling him “the only true teacher of Mozart.”

The April 16 performance will include Mozart’s Symphony No. 17 in G, K. 129;the Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s Symphony op. 11 No. 1 in G major; and Mozart’s Symphony Concertante in E♭ major, K. 364 - featuring Virtuosi Maestro Adrian Sylveen on viola and Virtuosi Concertmaster Brunilda Myftaraj on violin. Limited in-person tickets for the April 16 performance are available through TicketLeap at a suggested donation of $25. Social distance protocols will be in place and all guests are asked to wear masks. The Trinity-On-Main Arts Center is located at 69 Main Street, New Britain, Connecticut.

The April 18 performance will include Mozart’s Symphony No.6 in F, K.43; the Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Symphony op. 11 No. 2 in D major; and Johann Christian Bach’s Sinfonia concertante, W.C 34 in A-major for Violin and Cello - which will feature Virtuosi Maestro Adrian Sylveen on violin and Cellist Andrea Mills. Limited in-person tickets for the April 18 performance are available through TicketLeap at a suggested donation of $25. Social distance protocols will be in place and all guests are asked to wear masks. The Cyril & Methodius Church is located at 63 Popieluszko Court in Hartford. Connecticut.

Due to the pandemic and Connecticut COVID-19 regulations, all dates and details are subject to change or cancellation. For more information on the Mozart & Friends Festival, as well as other upcoming performances, visit http://thevirtuosi.org/. Both festival performances will also be broadcast live on The Virtuosi’s Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/ctvirtuosi.