Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival Announces 51st Season, 7/25

Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, one of New York's premier summer performance series, was announced today by Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss and Renée and Robert Belfer Music DirectorLouis Langrée. Building on last year's 50th anniversary season, this year's festival features appearances by world-renowned musicians, exciting new voices, memorable performances by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and innovative theatrical presentations from July 25 to August 20.

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"One of the great qualities of Mozart's genius is his boundless ability to inspire and connect us to art spanning all eras and locations. This season provides us with a chance to rediscover favorite pieces, as well as unearth connections between his music and that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and those who followed," said Moss.

Two staged productions, one of which is a U.S. premiere and the other a much-heralded revival, highlight this year's festival. Netia Jones, the theatrical visionary behind the White Light Festival's staging of Curlew River, returns to stage an orchestration of Schubert's Winterreise by contemporary German composer Hans Zender. The production, The Dark Mirror: Zender's Winterreise, will feature tenor Ian Bostridge and theInternational Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), conducted by Baldur Brönnimann, in his festival debut. In addition, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and its music director, Iván Fischer , return with their acclaimed production of Don Giovanni, a highlight of the 2011 festival.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will present eight programs, four under the baton of Louis Langrée. The special opening-night program, The Singing Heart, will nod to the festival's namesake composer, while embracing diverse musical traditions in a program that interweaves movements of Mozart's "Haffner" Symphony with choral works from around the world and of the same era. The Young People's Chorus of New York City will perform traditional and folk melodies in its festival debut, and the program culminates with Beethoven's exuberant Choral Fantasy with pianist Kit Armstrong, the Concert Chorale of New York, and vocal soloists.

Also joining the orchestra this summer will be guest conductors Edward Gardner, Andrew Manze, andGianandrea Noseda; and soloists Jeremy Denk, Kirill Gerstein, Beatrice Rana (New York debut), Gil Shaham, S? Percussion, and Thomas Zehetmair, as well as Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis in a joint performance.

The soulful genius of Schubert is a special focus of this year's festival. In addition to performing in The Dark Mirror: Zender's Winterreise, ICE, in its seventh year as the festival's artists-in-residence, will present creative responses to Schubert's work at a free event, Schubertiade Remix. The Festival Orchestra will perform Schubert's Symphonies No. 5 and No. 9 ("Great"). The film Franz Peter Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow (1994), featuring performances of late Schubert works by Vladimir Ashkenazy and others, will be screened.

Reflecting Mostly Mozart's strong commitment to contemporary music, the festival will feature the New York premiere of David Lang's man made with S? Percussion and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, conducted by Langrée. ICE will present a concert of contemporary works inspired by nature, one of Schubert's great muses, and works by living composers, including Caroline Shaw, Philip Glass, Viet Cuong, and Jonathan Berger, will be showcased in the A Little Night Music series.

Among visiting chamber ensembles are French early-music favorites Les Arts Florissants, which will perform an all-Charpentier program under the baton of Paul Agnew, and the Danish String Quartet, which will present an all-Beethoven program at Alice Tully Hall.

This year's lineup of A Little Night Music concerts, late-night performances in the intimate, candlelit Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, features Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, and Ana-Maria Vera, S? Percussion, theDanish String Quartet, Trio Solisti, accordionist Ksenija Sidorova, as well as pianists Pedja Muzijevic,Víkingur Ólafsson, and Kirill Gerstein.

Tickets for Friends of Mostly Mozart go on sale April 24 and to the general public beginning May 3. They can be purchased online at MostlyMozart.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or by visiting the David Geffen Hall or Alice Tully Hall Box Offices.