The Mozart Festival series of radio programs is comprehensive coverage of one of the world’s most spectacular music events. Location-recorded in Mozart’s hometown of Salzburg, Austria, The Mozart Festival includes performances by some of the world’s leading soloists and orchestras, backstage clips with performers, and location-recorded features touring the Mozarteum Foundation’s priceless collections, including Mozart’s original manuscripts and personal possessions. The Mozart Festival from American Public Media is presented by the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg and produced by Houston Public Media in cooperation with ORF/Austrian Radio. Wesley Horner, producer. The radio series can be heard on local APM stations nationwide. (Check local listings.)
Performers on The Mozart Festival radio programs include Met Opera star Mojca Erdmann; Camerata Salzburg with conductor Louis Langrée (Music Director, Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center; newly appointed Music Director, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra); pianist Emanuel Ax; stellar young German violinist Carolin Widmann; English conductor Ivor Bolton and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg; American pianist Robert Levin performing on Mozart’s own piano; and rising star conductors Pablo Heras-Casado of Spain leading the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and 28-year-old David Afkham, guest conductor with Concertgebouw, Seattle, Houston, Los Angeles orchestras, leading the Mozarteum Orchestra.
Behind-the-scenes features take listeners to Mozart’s birthplace to examine an original edition of his father’s legendary textbook on violin playing; to the Mozart family’s residence to hear Mozart’s own piano; and to the Mozarteum Foundation’s underground vaults for a first-hand look at some of Mozart’s earliest original manuscripts.
Click on tabs on this page for complete radio program details, bonus extended interviews with the artists, biographies of the artists and experts heard on the radio programs and the radio production team, links to the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and a photo journal of Salzburg in winter.
The Mozarteum Foundation
The Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg was founded by Mozart’s widow Constanze to preserve the legacy and memory of her husband, the most famous musician in history. The Mozarteum owns two museums, including the house where Mozart was born and the house where he lived with his family as a young man; maintains a research facility and the most extensive Mozart library in the world, including more than 35,000 titles; and annually presents the Mozart Week, a festival of orchestral, chamber, solo, and opera performances by leading musicians from around the world in its several world-class concert halls. The Mozarteum is the world’s most prominent keeper of Mozart’s memory and leader in historical and contemporary research and presentation of Mozart’s legacy. You can support the activities and work of the Mozarteum by becoming an American Friends of the Mozarteum. Learn more here.