Looking back...

“Tout finit par des chansons – everything ends in songs”, Beaumarchais wrote as his last line in The Marriage of Figaro. By contrast, in the 2011 edition of the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival everything began with songs. With its theme “On Wings of Song” (after the eponymous lied by Felix Mendelssohn), the Festival took place between 27 January and 13 February, offering an exciting tribute to vocal music and to music inspired by vocal genres. The spectrum ranged from Mozart’s Requiem, via Schubert’s epic song-cycle Die Winterreise and African choral music, to cabaret songs by Weill and Eisler and back to a programme of operatic arias and duets by Mozart.  READ ON >>

2010 – the eagerly awaited year in which South Africa hosted the Football World Championship – saw people from all “corners” of the world flock to the southern tip of Africa for this global sports event. Soccer aficionados from all “hemispheres” enjoyed the games, the beauty of South Africa’s landscapes and the hospitality of its people. Following the 2009 highly successful premiere of the Johannesburg Mozart Festival as an international event, it was our “goal” to “score” a similar success in 2010 and to reflect on the idea of “hemispheres” and visitors to South Africa in musical terms.  READ ON >>