Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Regret is useless, and yet...

I make a big deal out of the Mainly Mozart festival because it actually is a big deal

Wolfgang A. Mozart
Wolfgang A. Mozart

Every year I make a big deal of the upcoming Mainly Mozart Festival, and I do this because it actually is a big deal. I had been writing about classical music for about five years when I finally went to my first Mainly Mozart concert experience. I was flabbergasted by what happened in that concert. The Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra is simply the best the of the best. There is no argument. I began regretting the years of the festival I had missed.

I moved to San Diego in 1991 to attend college. That was the third year of the Mainly Mozart Festival. I began hearing about the festival not too long after, as I worked at both The Wherehouse and Tower Records on Sports Arena Boulevard. For 23 years I missed the festival. It was always over before I realized it had happened — and I was a Mozart fan.

Movie

Amadeus *

thumbnail

Through the overlush production and the underlush direction (by Milos Forman), you can still see the makings of a potent historical fiction: potent enough, that is, to stir up curiosity about how much of it is true and to put down protests about how much of it isn't. The rivalry between the traditionalist court composer Antonio Salieri and the free-lance innovator Mozart -- a one-sided rivalry, really, with Salieri driven by envy of talent, and revulsion at personal temperament, into the most melodramatic sort of chicanery -- has almost as universal an application as author Peter Shaffer means it to have: mediocrity is everywhere, and its best hope to escape detection is to stamp out anything better. But the particulars of this case tend, as particulars will, to obscure the application; and though most people by definition should have an easier time identifying with Salieri, the dramatic sympathy piles up all the other way. "Chastity, industry, and humility" — the bartering items Salieri is ready to offer to God in exchange for musical immortality — do not sound anywhere near as much fun as the bouts of partygoing that seem to take up the bulk of Mozart's time, in between jotting down those masterpieces that come to his head fully formed. The notion of "genius" as some sort of genetic lottery prize (rather than as that no-fun definition of Carlyle's, the transcendent capacity for taking pains) will help to make Mozart a hero for our time, if only to provide a handy excuse for packing it up whenever work bogs down. (Nothing pushes the conflict further toward oversimplification than the portrayal of Mozart, by Tom Hulce, as a sort of Mickey Rooney <em>circa</em> 1939, complete with barnyard laugh.) And it will be easy to forget that Salieri, for all his obliging concessions of his own mediocrity and of the absolute genius of his rival, is at least as far above the general run as Mozart is above him. With F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Berridge, and Jeffrey Jones.

Find showtimes

Having come of age in the 80s, I was severely seduced by the movie Amadeus, and Mozart was the pinnacle of my musical experiences. I had purchased scores of his music, mostly choral works, and listened to endless hours of piano concertos, operas, symphonies, et cetera.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Regret is a useless emotion in many ways, but I couldn’t help feeling a certain sense of loss after that first Mainly Mozart concert. I haven’t missed one since.

This year the festival runs June 1-24 and the theme is Brave New World: From Rebel to Entrepreneur. This is year three in a six-year journey through Mozart’s life and music as established by Mainly Mozart music director Michael Francis.

The meat and potatoes of the festival are the festival orchestra concerts at the Balboa Theatre, the first of which is June 9. However, the most interesting concert of the festival might be the very next day, June 10.

Past Event

Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra with Derek Paravicini

  • Sunday, June 10, 2018, 7 p.m.
  • Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Avenue, San Diego
  • $15 - $88

Derek Paravicini has been featured multiple times on 60 Minutes and other national news shows due to his extraordinary skills as a pianist. Derek was born blind and severely autistic, to the point where he cannot dress or feed himself, yet he can play every song he’s ever heard in any key and in any style. He is a confirmed musical savant.

Video:

Derek Paravicini on 60 Minutes

The Mainly Mozart Festival has commissioned a piece of music for piano and orchestra for Derek which will receive its world premiere on June 10 at the Balboa Theatre. The concert will also feature members of the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra playing side by side with the festival orchestra, and LA Philharmonic concertmaster Martin Chalifour will solo with the orchestra in Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Pranksters vandalize Padres billboard in wake of playoff loss

Where’s the bat at?
Wolfgang A. Mozart
Wolfgang A. Mozart

Every year I make a big deal of the upcoming Mainly Mozart Festival, and I do this because it actually is a big deal. I had been writing about classical music for about five years when I finally went to my first Mainly Mozart concert experience. I was flabbergasted by what happened in that concert. The Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra is simply the best the of the best. There is no argument. I began regretting the years of the festival I had missed.

I moved to San Diego in 1991 to attend college. That was the third year of the Mainly Mozart Festival. I began hearing about the festival not too long after, as I worked at both The Wherehouse and Tower Records on Sports Arena Boulevard. For 23 years I missed the festival. It was always over before I realized it had happened — and I was a Mozart fan.

Movie

Amadeus *

thumbnail

Through the overlush production and the underlush direction (by Milos Forman), you can still see the makings of a potent historical fiction: potent enough, that is, to stir up curiosity about how much of it is true and to put down protests about how much of it isn't. The rivalry between the traditionalist court composer Antonio Salieri and the free-lance innovator Mozart -- a one-sided rivalry, really, with Salieri driven by envy of talent, and revulsion at personal temperament, into the most melodramatic sort of chicanery -- has almost as universal an application as author Peter Shaffer means it to have: mediocrity is everywhere, and its best hope to escape detection is to stamp out anything better. But the particulars of this case tend, as particulars will, to obscure the application; and though most people by definition should have an easier time identifying with Salieri, the dramatic sympathy piles up all the other way. "Chastity, industry, and humility" — the bartering items Salieri is ready to offer to God in exchange for musical immortality — do not sound anywhere near as much fun as the bouts of partygoing that seem to take up the bulk of Mozart's time, in between jotting down those masterpieces that come to his head fully formed. The notion of "genius" as some sort of genetic lottery prize (rather than as that no-fun definition of Carlyle's, the transcendent capacity for taking pains) will help to make Mozart a hero for our time, if only to provide a handy excuse for packing it up whenever work bogs down. (Nothing pushes the conflict further toward oversimplification than the portrayal of Mozart, by Tom Hulce, as a sort of Mickey Rooney <em>circa</em> 1939, complete with barnyard laugh.) And it will be easy to forget that Salieri, for all his obliging concessions of his own mediocrity and of the absolute genius of his rival, is at least as far above the general run as Mozart is above him. With F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Berridge, and Jeffrey Jones.

Find showtimes

Having come of age in the 80s, I was severely seduced by the movie Amadeus, and Mozart was the pinnacle of my musical experiences. I had purchased scores of his music, mostly choral works, and listened to endless hours of piano concertos, operas, symphonies, et cetera.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Regret is a useless emotion in many ways, but I couldn’t help feeling a certain sense of loss after that first Mainly Mozart concert. I haven’t missed one since.

This year the festival runs June 1-24 and the theme is Brave New World: From Rebel to Entrepreneur. This is year three in a six-year journey through Mozart’s life and music as established by Mainly Mozart music director Michael Francis.

The meat and potatoes of the festival are the festival orchestra concerts at the Balboa Theatre, the first of which is June 9. However, the most interesting concert of the festival might be the very next day, June 10.

Past Event

Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra with Derek Paravicini

  • Sunday, June 10, 2018, 7 p.m.
  • Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Avenue, San Diego
  • $15 - $88

Derek Paravicini has been featured multiple times on 60 Minutes and other national news shows due to his extraordinary skills as a pianist. Derek was born blind and severely autistic, to the point where he cannot dress or feed himself, yet he can play every song he’s ever heard in any key and in any style. He is a confirmed musical savant.

Video:

Derek Paravicini on 60 Minutes

The Mainly Mozart Festival has commissioned a piece of music for piano and orchestra for Derek which will receive its world premiere on June 10 at the Balboa Theatre. The concert will also feature members of the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra playing side by side with the festival orchestra, and LA Philharmonic concertmaster Martin Chalifour will solo with the orchestra in Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Big swordfish, big marlin, and big money

Trout opener at Santee Lakes
Next Article

Filmora 14’s AI Tools Streamline Content Creation for Marketers

Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader