American Symphony Orchestra to Present Mozart & Friends at Riverside Church

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), led by Music Director Leon Botstein, performs Mozart & Friends at Riverside Church on Thursday, November 5 at 8 PM. The concert features sacred works by eminent composers from Mozart's time that are rarely heard today. Anchored by Mozart's Mass in C Major ('Coronation Mass'), the program includes Johann Adolf Hasse's Miserere in C minor and the U.S. premieres of Michael Haydn's Missa Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni and Georg Anton Benda's cantata 'Gott steigt herab.'

The Orchestra will be joined by the Bard Festival Chorale, led by James Bagwell. Soloists spotlight a roster of Metropolitan Opera singers: soprano Maureen McKay, hailed for her roles as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel and Papagena in The Magic Flute; mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon, with covering duties at the Met Opera in both Medea and Maria Stuarda; tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, who this fall covers the role of Thomas Havens in the world-premiere of Lincoln in the Bardo, and sings Pang in Turandot at both LA Opera and Dallas Opera; and bass William Guanbo Su, returning to the Met as Colline in La bohème and Angelotti in Tosca this season.

The ASO will next perform an all-Beethoven program with the Bard Festival Chorale at Carnegie Hall on January 29.

Once widely celebrated, composers such as Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783), Georg Anton Benda (1722-1795), and Michael Haydn (1737-1806)—Franz Joseph Haydn's younger brother—may be less familiar to audiences today, but were important influences on Mozart's work. Hasse's Miserere in C minor blends operatic lyricism with sacred solemnity. Likewise, the U.S. premieres of Benda's cantata 'Gott steigt herab' brings dramatic flair to sacred music, while Haydn's Missa Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni exemplifies the simplicity that characterized liturgical music in Salzburg under Archbishop Colloredo. The program concludes with Mozart's beloved 'Coronation' Mass in C Major, a work offering a variety of musical ideas surpassing anything he had written in the genre before then.

Tickets, starting at $25, are available at americansymphony.org.

Event Details

Mozart & Friends

Thursday, November 5, 2026, at Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive

Pre-concert Talk at 7 PM

Concert at 8 PM

American Symphony Orchestra

Leon Botstein, Conductor

Bard Festival Chorale

James Bagwell, Music Director of the Bard Festival Chorale

Maureen McKay, Soprano

Ashley Dixon, Mezzo-soprano

Terrence Chin-Loy, Tenor

William Guanbo Su, Bass

Johann Adolf Hasse: Miserere in C minor

Michael Haydn: Missa Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni — U.S. Premiere

Georg Anton Benda (arr. C.P.E. Bach): 'Gott steigt herab' (God comes down) — U.S. Premiere

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Mass in C Major, K. 317 'Coronation Mass'

American Symphony Orchestra

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski with the mission of providing great music for everyone. Leon Botstein expanded that focus when he joined the ASO as Music Director in 1992 by creating concerts that explore music through the lens of the visual arts, literature, religion, and history, as well as by reviving rarely performed works that audiences would otherwise never hear performed live. The ASO's signature programming includes its Vanguard Series, which features concerts of seldom-performed orchestral repertoire presented at Carnegie Hall, Bryant Park, and other historic venues, and its Chamber Series—curated by ASO's musicians—offering concert programs dedicated to reflecting the diverse perspectives of American culture. During the summer, the ASO is the orchestra-in-residence at Bard's SummerScape and performs at the Bard Music Festival. All ASO presentations comprise a year-round series of vital and innovative programming for audiences of all backgrounds. As part of its commitment to expanding the standard orchestral repertoire and ensuring accessibility to musical masterpieces, the ASO offers free streaming of exclusive live recordings on its digital platform, ASO Online. Content includes SummerScape operas, chamber performances, and short films. In many cases, these are the only existing recordings of some of the forgotten works that have been restored through ASO performances. For more information, please visit americansymphony.org.

Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein has been music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. He is also music director of The Orchestra Now, an innovative training orchestra composed of top musicians from around the world. He is co-artistic director of Bard Summerscape and the Bard Music Festival, which take place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where he was president from 1975-2026. Mr. Botstein is also active as a guest conductor and can be heard on numerous recordings with the London Symphony (including a GRAMMY nominated recording of Popov's First Symphony), the London Philharmonic, NDR-Hamburg, and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Botstein has revived numerous neglected operas, creating once-in-a-lifetime experiences for concertgoers and global audiences. Including rare repertoire such as Schoenberg's massive Gurre-Lieder and the accompanying short-film, which documented the monumental undertaking, Strauss's first opera, Guntram, and the U.S. Premiere of Sergei Taneyev's final work, At the Reading of a Psalm. His recording of Paul Hindemith's The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO was named one of the top recordings of 2015 by several publications, and his recent recording of Gershwin piano music with the Royal Philharmonic was hailed by The Guardian and called 'something special...in a crowded field' by Musicweb International. He is a prolific author and music historian and the recipient of numerous honors for his contributions to the music industry. In 2019, The New York Times named Leon Botstein a 'champion of overlooked works…who has tirelessly worked to bring to light worthy scores by neglected composers.' More info at LeonBotstein.com.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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