2019 Johannesburg International Mozart Festival under way

The Viennese New Year Concert has become a fixture on Joburg’s cultural calendar in recent years. The feel-good programme celebrates the arrival of the New Year and gets the ball rolling for a season of brilliant concerts.

This year’s theme, Ein Musikalischer Spass (The Musical Joke), covers all manner of humorous subject matter and explores what happens when composers have fun with their music.

Not only was 19 January an evening of glitz and glamour at the Linder Auditorium but an opening night for the whole Johannesburg International Mozart Festival (JIMF)

The festival was initiated by Richard Cock, executive director of JIMF, and Florian Uhlig, artistic director of JIMF in 2006, the 250^th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.

“For five years it was a one-weekend event consisting of a solo recital, a chamber music concert and symphony concert… as it has grown in size and popularity, Florian then also suggested that each year we should explore avenues of music informed by aspects of Mozart’s works or texts by way of a theme. From then we did that and it gives an amazing focus to each festival and what we do,” said Cock.

Florian said the diversity of this year’s programme reflects that the festival places great emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches, providing innovative intersections between classical repertoires, new music, improvisation, film, dance, theatre and contemporary South African art.

“The JIMF’s educational initiatives, too, are going from strength to strength. Our current vocal scholars at the Musikhochschule in Cologne/Germany have recently enjoyed international competition successes and concert engagements. The 2019 festival will, of course, see another edition of the annual vocal masterclass, along with several other composition and performance workshops,” Florian said.

The JIMF officially gets under way on 25 January and runs until 3 February across various venues in Johannesburg.

Details: www.join-mozart-festival.org