"Musical Hemispheres"
Festival Profile
The first edition of the “Mozart Festival” took place in Johannesburg in January 2006 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Originally organized as an extended weekend of music-making in memory of the great Austrian composer, over the past three years the Festival has developed into a highly successful and well-loved classical music event.
In 2008, Richard Cock, the Music Director of the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, joined forces with concert pianist Florian Uhlig as Artistic Director and both musicians founded the “Johannesburg International Mozart Festival”.
Since then a whole programme of new ideas has been devised to extend the artistic spectrum of festival activities. Apart from symphony, chamber and solo concerts, the 2010 Festival, for example, will include a song recital, a choral concert, workshops, an interdisciplinary symposium and, above all, a number of music events for, with, and in the communities. The latter marks the special emphasis the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival is placing on music education and outreach projects as an integrated long-term commitment.
The Festival takes place on an annual basis on and around 27 January – Mozart’s anniversary – at a time when the regular subscription series of the South African classical music scene come to a halt for their summer break and audiences will particularly enjoy the more informal character of festival music-making.
The Johannesburg International Mozart Festival provides a unique combination of classical performances on the highest international level with a keenly intelligent and creative approach to programming and an enterprising portfolio of all-encompassing education and outreach projects for children, students and audiences of all corners of society. Both the Festival’s logo and its website domain www.join-mozart-festival.org (“join” being an abbreviation of “JOhannesburg INternational”) reflect the Festival’s ambition and desire to invite people of all backgrounds and ages to join in and be united in the enjoyment and celebration of music.