DEAR AUDIENCES, DEAR ARTISTS, DEAR FRIENDS OF MOZART,

Welcome to the Mozart Week 2027! It gives us the greatest pleasure to be able to welcome you again this year.

The theme of the Mozart Week 2027 is Mozart and ‘Mozarts’. It is really interesting how many composers were compared with Mozart, and we’d like to make you a little more familiar with some of these composers in this Mozart Week. There was a ‘French Mozart’, the ‘Caribbean Mozart’, the ‘Spanish Mozart’ and also the ‘Swedish Mozart’: Franc?ois Devienne, Joseph Bologne, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga and Joseph Martin Kraus will be featured this year in our varied programme alongside Wolfgang Amadé Mozart.

The ‘Mozarts’ do of course also include his family. Works by his father Leopold and Mozart’s second son Franz Xaver Wolfgang can be heard. The award-winning play The Other Mozart analyses the life of Mozart’s sister Maria Anna, and the popular series Letters and Music helps us to learn more about Mozart’s mother Anna Maria. And even if he is not known in music history as ‘The Mozart from Bonn’, but followed his own unmistakable path, we pay tribute to the great Ludwig van Beethoven in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of his death in 2027. Nothing less than his monumental Ninth Symphony will be performed, whose core message ‘All men become brothers’ can not be emphasized enough in these geopolitical challenging times.

Mozart and ‘Mozarts’ is the theme therefore but our beloved and esteemed Wolfgang Amadé Mozart forms the heart of the programme. In 2027 we also celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the CAMERATA Salzburg with a semi-staged production of Così fan tutte and an outstanding cast.

Not long ago, I was asked if our world would be a better one if everyone listened to Mozart. I am not sure, but of one thing I am certain: every person who listens to Mozart will feel better. Of course in Mozart’s music there is an intense level of melancholy on which he leads us through dark forests and cloud banks. Yet ultimately he always leads us back to the light and perhaps we can understand a little better why we human beings are here on this earth. The arts are not here to give us answers but to accompany us and allow us to understand our innermost feelings. And, in Mozart’s case, to see our own light better. Perhaps our ‘other Mozarts’ had a similar quality. It is up to you, dear audiences, to discover this and to decide.

We are looking forward to experiencing all these composers and their works together with you through the interpretations of our fantastic artists.
We hope you will enjoy browsing through the programme, and we can hardly wait to see you again here in Salzburg in January.

Rolando Villazón