ConcertPulse
Mozart in Amerika
When Riccardo Minasi conducts Mozart, the symphony orchestra becomes a true dramatist and the concert podium an unleashed opera stage. Two Americans also ensure that the classical balance is powerfully and thrillingly mixed up. Aaron Copland wrote his clarinet concerto for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, and William Grant Still was the first African American to have his works performed by a leading orchestra like the New York Philharmonic. Conductor Minasi juxtaposes these with the primal musical forces of 20th-century America by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.