Arts & Culture

An Evening of Mozart Masterpieces

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 23, 2015)  In a grand collaboration with the University of Kentucky Choirs and the UK Symphony Orchestra, hundreds of performers from UK School of Music will take the Singletary Center for the Arts stage to perform works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 24. The concert is free and open to the public.

The concert program will feature Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor under the direction of conductor of the UK Symphony Orchestra John Nardolillo and conductor of the UK Choirs Jefferson Johnson. The ensembles will also perform the composer’s “Overture to Le nozze di Figaro” and Symphony No. 38 in D Major “Prague.”

Prior to the concert, the Friends of the UK School of Music and the Art Museum at UK will host a pre-show reception at 6 p.m. in the museum.

Mozart was born into a musical family, educated by his father, Leopold, and paraded on tour throughout Europe as a musical prodigy on both the keyboard and violin. Ten years of travel fostered the growth of his compositional voice, which became one of the most influential in the history of western music.

The Requiem Mass was one of three major works that dominated the final months of Mozart’s life. The Mass was commissioned by Count Walsegg-Stuppach to honor his wife, who had died in February 1791. The story of the Requiem’s commissioning and conception were a point of intrigue from the moment of its first performance. The combination of Walsegg-Stuppach requesting the work in secret and Mozart’s death before its completion sowed the seeds of conjecture for years to come. At the time of Mozart’s death in December 1791, the manuscripts were handed over to a former student, Franz Xaver Sussmayr, who claimed to have composed the latter parts of the Requiem while completing the rest of Mozart’s sketches to create the Requiem we know today.

In addition to the gifted ensembles and conductors, the concert will showcase the vocal talents of UK Opera Theatre senior Jessica Bayne, of Christiansburg, Virginia; graduate student Holly Dodson, of Lexington; junior Matthew Pearce, of Union, Kentucky; and doctoral candidate André Campelo, of Goiânia, Brazil.

Founded in 1918, the UK Symphony Orchestra is regarded as one of the nation’s best college orchestras. The group is made up of undergraduate and graduate students from across the United States, Asia, South America and Europe. The orchestra regularly performs with world-renowned concert artists including Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, Mark O’Connor, Lynn Harrell, Marvin Hamlisch, Lang Lang and Arlo Guthrie. The orchestra performs in the concert hall at the Singletary Center for the Arts, with UK Opera Theatre at the Lexington Opera House, and on tour, including concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2007 and 2010, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2009. In addition to live performances, UK's orchestra is one of the only collegiate orchestra programs to record with Naxos, the world’s largest classical music label.

The ensembles of the UK Choirs constitute one of the most active and vibrant collegiate choral programs in the country. UK's choral ensembles are 220 students strong, presenting more than 60 performances annually. The choirs are regularly invited to perform at prestigious national conferences including the American Choral Directors Association. They have also toured Europe extensively, offering a rich international educational experience for our students.

The UK School of Music at the UK College of Fine Arts has achieved awards and national and international recognition for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as for music education, composition, theory and music history.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu