Mostly Mozart Festival 2013 at Lincoln Center: Final Week Features Emerson String Quartet & More!

The 2013 Mostly Mozart Festival comes to a close in its fourth week, with more than 10 events taking place between August 19 and August 24. The final week begins with a special chamber music concert by the celebrated Emerson String Quartet, 7:00pm on August 19 at Alice Tully Hall. The ensemble, which made its first Festival appearance in 1983 and has performed nearly every season since that time, makes its highly anticipated first New York City appearance with its newest member, cellist Paul Watkins. The Emerson String Quartet will add to the Festival's overarching focus on Beethoven by performing all three of Beethoven's famed "Razumovsky" Quartets: String Quartet in F major, Op. 59; String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59; and String Quartet in C major, Op. 59.

One of the world's leading period-instrument ensembles, the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival with a survey of renowned vocal works by George Frideric Handel at Alice Tully Hall on August 22 at 7:30pm. The program pays tribute to the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, comprising arias from Theodora, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Hercules and Ariodante, with mezzo-sopranos Renata Pokupic and Anna Stéphany, led by conductorLaurence Cummings. These vocal works are complemented by two interspersed orchestral works: Concerto Grosso in B minor, Op. 6, No. 12, HWV 330 and Concerto Grosso in B-flat major, Op. 3, No. 2, HWV 313. Members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will offer a pre-concert recital, starting at 7:00pm, performing works by Leclair and Vivaldi.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra offers two programs at Avery Fisher Hall during the concluding week, starting with a two-concert series featuring the renowned violinist and Festival favorite Joshua Bell, August 20 and 21, each at 8:00pm. Bell returns to the Festival with Tchaikovsky's lyrical and lush Violin Concerto, led by Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée. This concert also features one of Mozart's great symphonic works, Symphony No. 36 in C major, K.425 ("Linz"), inspired by the city of the same name in Austria. Prior to these concerts is a pre-concert recital with pianist Francesco Piemontesi, performing selections from Debussy's Préludes.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will close out the 2013 Festival, with concerts on August 23 and 24 at 8:00pm in Avery Fisher Hall. These concerts will feature Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée and the Festival Orchestra surveying the triptych of Mozart's final three symphonies: Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K.543, Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550 and Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551, "Jupiter." Prior to the August 23 performance, Bryan Gilliam will give a pre-concert lecture, at 6:45pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) concludes its season as Festival artists-in-residence with three new-music events in its 10 concert mini-series, which honors 10 established and emerging New York-based composers. The final ICE concerts kick off with the last ICElab event on August 19, which offers three world premieres from Maria Stankova and Nathan Davis, including the world premiere of Stankova's rapana for voice and ensemble featuring soprano Tony Arnold, and afaint afar away over there what for ensemble, as well as Davis's On the Nature of Thingness, also with Arnold singing the soprano part, and the world premiere of Ghostlight for piano and electronics (previously this title was unannounced). Stankova also makes her Mostly Mozart Festival debut performing live electronics. On August 20 at 7:30pm, ICE presents a special 80th birthday portrait concert honoring the achievements of pioneering composer Pauline Oliveros, whose groundbreaking music has impacted scores of composers and musicians through her unique approach of creating works with modern technology and electronics. This event features three works: Thirteen Changes: For Malcolm Goldstein (1986), Double X (1981) and the world premiere of Concerto for Bass Drum and Ensemble, In Memory of Mary Montgomery Brown (1942-2012) (2013) all for mixed ensemble and led by percussionist/conductor Steven Schick. An additional fourth work has been added for the program:PIANO PIANO for piano (1988), which will be performed by ICE's Cory Smythe. ICE's final program pairs Beethoven's idiosyncratic Septet with a new work receiving its world premiere by the innovative composer George Lewis on August 22, also at 7:30pm. Lewis, a jazz musician, and computer music pioneer, has created a new work for septet and electronics, titledBorn Obbligato, in which elements of Beethoven's Septet are nested within movements of his own work. Steven Schickaccompanies ICE on percussion instruments for this performance.

The A Little Night Music series comes to a close on August 22 at 10:00pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. Following earlier pre-concert recitals, pianist Francesco Piemontesi makes his official Mostly Mozart Festival debut, performing Mozart's Sonata in F major, K.533 and Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by G.F. Handel, Op. 24.

All programs and artists are subject to change.

Tickets for Mostly Mozart Festival 2013 can be purchased online at MostlyMozart.org, by phone via CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, or by visiting the Avery Fisher Hall or Alice Tully Hall box offices at Broadway and 65th St. For a Mostly Mozart brochure, call 212.875.5766. Single tickets to all ICE events are available for purchase as of July 1. Ticket prices subject to change.

ABOUT THE MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL

Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival-America's first indoor summer music festival-was launched as an experiment in 1966. Called Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusively to the music of Mozart. Renamed the Mostly Mozart Festival in 1970, it has become a New York institution and, now in its 47th year, continues to broaden its focus to include works by Mozart's predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. It is currently the only group in the United States dedicated to the Classical period. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra,Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by visiting period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as staged music presentations, opera productions, dance, film, and visual art.

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Mostly Mozart Festival, and is the only orchestra in the U.S. dedicated to the music of the Classical period. Members of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra come from all over the world, performing in such premier orchestras and ensemble including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, MET Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. Internationally celebrated conductor Louis Langrée has been music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival since December 2002, and was named Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director in August 2006. Each summer since 2005, the Orchestra's Avery Fisher Hall home at Lincoln Center is transformed into an appropriately intimate venue for its performances. Over the years, the Orchestra has toured to such notable festivals and venues as Ravinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, Bunkamura in Tokyo, and the Kennedy Center. Conductors who made their New York debuts leading the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra include Jérémie Rhorer, Edward Gardner, Lionel Bringuier, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Edo de Waart. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist James Galway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida all made their U.S. debuts with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.

ABOUT LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 series, festivals, and programs including American Songbook, Avery Fisher Artist Program, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Books, Lincoln Center Dialogue, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Martin E. Segal Awards, Meet the Artist, Mostly Mozart Festival, Target Free Thursdays, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.

Lincoln Center is committed to providing and improving accessibility for people with disabilities. For information, call the Department of Programs and Services for People with Disabilities at (212) 875-5375.

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