Welcome the Festival back to live concerts with a beloved tradition, the Star Spangled Banner, and a special appearance from superstar Israeli Violinist Vadim Gluzman. He’ll bring Mozart’s utterly charming and operatic Violin Concerto No. 3 to life with his extraordinary 1690 Stradivarius. The concert concludes with Franz Joseph Haydn’s final symphony, the “London.” It’s a delightful and deservedly popular work, a crowning achievement by the “Father of the Symphony.”

Mozart had achieved rockstar status in Prague, thanks to the adoration bestowed there upon The Marriage of Figaro. He was, therefore, happy to have the nickname “Prague” attached to this symphony at its premiere in that city. It’s a masterpiece, full of sparkling virtuosity, celebration, drama, and humor. The concert opens with the piece that defines the quintessential American Sound: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, composed originally as the score to Martha Graham’s ballet of the same name.

Vadim Gluzman partners with Festival musicians to bring you two jewels of the chamber repertoire. Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne is an arrangement for violin and piano of the composer’s score for the hugely successful ballet Pucinella. Tchaikovsky’s only string sextet, Souvenir de Florence, owes its name to a lovely melody he thought of while in Florence working on something else. And that’s as Italian as this (very Russian) piece gets!

Beethoven’s “Heroic” symphony transformed the genre. It was more massive, ambitious, and innovative than any music that had been written before. In many ways, it represents the turning point from classical to romantic music. Heroism, despair, mourning and triumph are just some of the emotions represented in a piece that uses rhythm and a driving force as an equal partner to melody. Reflecting on “Eroica,” Leonard Bernstein marveled at “the mysterious genius of a man who is capable of uniting all contradictions into one single, perfect entity.”