Name: Mozart in America
Start: 2025-02-07T20:00:00
Location: Alte Oper

Martin Fröst

Riccardo Minasi

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

When Riccardo Minasi conducts Mozart, the symphonist transforms into a true dramatist, and the concert hall becomes an unleashed opera stage. But that's not all: two Americans also ensure that the classical balance is vigorously and exhilaratingly shaken up. It's unmistakable: Aaron Copland wrote his Clarinet Concerto for the jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman; it swings and breathes, it pulsates and dances—especially when interpreted by an expressive musician like Martin Fröst. But the grand master of American symphonic music is William Grant Still: he was the first African American whose works were performed by a leading orchestra like the New York Philharmonic. This happened in 1935 with the "Afro-American Symphony," in which spirituals and blues find their orchestral expression. Conductor Minasi contrasts these primal musical forces from 20th-century America with those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And these performances will be no less vibrant and furious under his baton, as the Italian conductor, with his roots in historically informed performance practice, is considered the man of the moment when it comes to radically revitalizing Mozart.