The Miami Chamber Music Society and the Coral Gables Art Cinema present the Mainly Mozart Festival Inaugural Lecture Series, five Tuesday evening sessions in conjunction with the 23rd Annual Mainly Mozart Festival from April 19, 2016 – May 17, 2016 at 7:00 pm. Join Frank Cooper, Research Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Miami, for a celebration of learning, designed to heighten your experience of the music of history’s greatest prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

FIVE SUCCESSIVE TUESDAY EVENINGS AT 7:00-9:00 PM

April 19          Mozart & the Chamber

                       Beginning in his 7^th year, Mozart composed works to be performed in courtly chambers & aristocratic settings. At 9, he invented the duet-sonata! From his pen flowed unparalleled sonatas, variations, trios, quartets, quintets & songs. This class investigates Mozart’s charming achievements for 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 performers. To be performed by the Lynn University String Quintet as the evening’s coda: Mozart’s great String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516       

April 26          Mozart & the Symphony

                        While in his 8^th year(!) and starting in England, Mozart composed the first of his 41 Symphonies. Building on the ideas of others, then surpassing every contemporary except Haydn, he took the form to a peak. This session focuses on Mozart’s development as a sensational symphonist, way ahead of his time.

May 3              Mozart & the Concerto

                        At 11, the boy began arranging the music of others for keyboard & orchestra then, in his teens, began originating concerted works for an array of instruments – bassoon, flute, clarinet, harp, horn, oboe, piano, & violin (more than 40 in all). This presentation treats that amazing phenomenon’s perfection.

May 10           Mozart & the Stage

                        From his 11^th year(!), Mozart wrote works for the stage until his death at 35. Twenty-two in all – among them his century’s greatest singspiel, greatest opera buffa, & greatest drama giocoso. This session studies the new fusion of music & dramaturgy which took Mozart from wunderkind to the heights of mastery.

May 17           Mozart & the Church

                       From a Kyrie at 10 & a mass at 12, Mozart wrote music for the church to the end of his days – leaving incomplete the greatest Requiem of the 18^th century. In this final evening, litanies, vespers, motets, misereres, & mass movements show his uncanny capacities for profound expression through music of deeply held beliefs.