The Rocky Mountain Symphony Orchestra (RMSO) is once again putting on a special weekend of music Jan. 26th to 28th to celebrate the influential composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart’s Birthday Festival will feature not only solo oboe Aidan Dugan, but seven young Concerto Competition Winners across three days of concerts.
The RMSO teamed up with the Mountain View Festival to host their first ever concerto competition in November.
Children aged six to 13 participated in the competition accompanied by a string quartet of RMSO musicians.
The idea was to give the children who won the concerto the opportunity in January to perform and play on stage with the RMSO, said RMSO’s executive director, Jennifer Harbour.
However, instead of only giving the spotlight to the finalists of the concerto competition, the Mountain View Festival organization decided to add a Sunday concert to give all the young musicians a chance to perform.
“It's a very exciting thing because what it is doing is giving opportunities to children,” Harbour said.
“And this January, all the music that is being performed by the Rocky Mountains Symphony Orchestra is Mozart. We're celebrating Mozart's birthday.”
In turn, the Mountain View Festival sponsored the RMSO concert series, Mozart’s Birthday Festival.
The finalists from the concerto competition will be featured during the Friday and Saturday concerts, alongside larger symphonies and an oboe concerto.
"We have a full orchestra on the stage with these children playing on a beautiful Steinway piano center stage,” Harbour said. “Then on the Sunday, the string quartet, which is called the Prosecco string quartet, will be performing with [four concerto competition musicians.]”
Across the three concerts there are 11 Mozart pieces that will be performed, with two piano concertos on Friday, two piano concertos on Saturday, and four piano concertos on Sunday.
The Polaris Centre can seat 210, according to Harbour, and she hopes to see sales picking up as they near the event.
With families and friends of the young musicians starting to purchase their tickets, Harbour encourages people to get their tickets soon in order to choose the best seats.
“We'd love to see that theater full, especially supporting these young amateur artists who are performing with professional musicians and for some of them it might be the first opportunity playing with a full orchestra as well,” she said.
She added that the partnership with the Rocky Mountain Festival is a great partnership promoting opportunities in arts and culture for young musicians.
“Mozart is just such a great composer and then [we will] just celebrate the arts and celebrate the future of arts by seeing these young performers,” she said.
“It's just something that you don't wanna miss. It's gonna be a great cultural experience.”
She added that the RMSO is a great option for rural residents to experience a fantastic night with beautiful true classical music.
Individual tickets and a weekend pass are available on the website at www.rockymountainsymphony.ca/mozart
