Thursday, June 20, saw the awakening of happy feelings upon arriving at The San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival. The concert was held at The Epstein Family Amphitheatre on the campus of UC San Diego. The concert featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 so I also had the awakening of happy feelings upon arriving in the countryside.

In most cases, there is the orchestra and then there is the star conductor. Mainly Mozart music director, Michael Francis, is an excellent conductor but I think he would agree that the star of the Mainly Mozart Festival is the orchestra. 

The Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra is created by bringing in the top players from the top orchestras from across the United States and Canada. The concertmaster for this first concert was Nurit Bar-Josef. She is the concertmaster of The National Symphony in Washington, D.C. San Diego Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, Jeff Thayer sat next to her. Rounding out the violin section were concertmasters from Atlanta, Vancouver, The Canadian Opera Orchestra, and on and on and on. The rest of the string section contains principal players from multiple orchestras as does the woodwind, brass, and percussion sections.

The concert began with pianist George Li playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21. Based in Boston, Mr. Li performs on the world’s stage. It was a delight to hear him perform this most famous of Mozart piano concertos. His playing was like liquid mercury. It flowed but had weight and a brilliant sheen that illuminated the inner workings of Mozart’s masterpiece. As an encore, Mr. Li set a world speed record with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee. I chuckled when he began the piece because, of course, this is the encore piece we all want to hear.

I have heard Michael Francis and the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 before. I believe it was during the 2018 or 2019 festival at The Balboa Theatre. As you might guess, I prefer an indoor setting for all classical music but the balance of the amplified sound was fantastic for this concert and I kind of forgot it was outdoors. I think the orchestra is close enough to the audience that it doesn’t need to be pumped up to ungodly heights.

If I were to choose one composer for Maestro Francis and this orchestra to perform it would be Beethoven. I know, it’s Mainly Mozart and not Basically Beethoven. However, a Beethoven symphony has more gravitas than anything Mozart wrote outside of his operas.

Was the performance perfect? Yes. Yes, it was. I was especially struck by the playing of the woodwinds in the second movement. The bird calls that Beethoven includes here were the Platonic Form of birdcall as performed by Jeffrey Khaner, flute, Frank Rosenwein, oboe, and Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet. All three are the principal chairs at their orchestras which are Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, respectively. Not to put too much emphasis on it but those are three of the top orchestras in the world.

I must mention the storm section as well. Let's just say it was a tempest of the aforementioned liquid mercury spinning off the stage.

The Mainly Mozart Festival continues through Saturday, June 29.