Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy and a musical genius. He started composing at the age of seven and wrote several “baby concertos” before he was nine.  But at 19, he wrote his 9^th piano concerto.

“That one is amazing, a masterpiece,” said Terrence Frazor, a University of the Incarnate Word professor and the founder of the Mozart Music Festival, whose 2022 version opens Sunday. “It’s technically difficult, challenging, and it’s very rarely performed. The reason is that it calls for 35 musicians, which creates a difficulty for symphonic orchestra that have many more musicians. What are they going to do with all the other players?”

But Frazor included the “troublesome” concerto  on the program of this year’s festival, together with other seldom performed musical gems. In fact, exposing audiences to great music they may not be familiar with, is one of the reasons Frazor created this fest, back in 2011.

“This festival was started for two important reasons,” he noted. “First of all, we play a special repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and others. We perform music that’s not generally performed in San Antonio. We wanted to spotlight that repertoire because it’s wonderful music that is often ignored. The second reason is that we have a large number of really excellent players here in town who wanted to play professionally but their full-time jobs were as music teachers or running a business or whatever. So, we wanted to give them an opportunity to play in a professional environment.”

Back then, the San Antonio Symphony was still a viable organization, but today, after the official dissolution of the symphony, having a festival like the Mozart 3-concert event, “provides classical music for the community this summer,” said Frazor.

There was no fest for two years due to pandemic-induced concerns, so the upcoming event is kind of a new beginning.

“It makes me a little nervous,” admitted the artistic director, “because we are not sure if our audiences will return. In 2019 when we had our last festival we had great audiences, filling the concert hall. Now we are hoping that our audiences will be back.”

The 2022 festival orchestra will consist of 40 musicians though they will appear on stage in various formations depending on the music played. “It’s a typical Baroque and classical orchestra,” said Frazor, who will conduct.

Mozart may be the title composer, but the programs feature others, such as Haydn, Bach, Hugo Wolf, and Tchaikovsky. The opening event this Sunday includes:  the Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin; Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, and Mozart’s G Minor Symphony. It will showcase prominent soloists like former SAS member, violinist Philip Johnson, his wife, oboist Deana Johnson, and cellist, Douglas Harvey, a San Antonio native who is today the principal cellist of the Austin Symphony.

On July 31, the very busy, Artisan Quartet, takes the stage with unspecified works by Mozart, Wolf and Tchaikovsky. The Artisan is the festival’s “quartet in residence,” and a group that is performing all over Texas these days. One of its members, Patrice Calixte, is the associate concertmaster of the Austin Symphony and all are Austin Symphony members.

On August 7, audiences will have a chance to enjoy performances by two very talented musicians, violinist Calixte and pianist Daniel Anastasio from San Antonio, who is a member of the Agarita Chamber Players. And the program sounds fabulous: Mozart Piano Concerto in E-Flat K271, (the rarely played one we mentioned before), and the composer’s violin concerto No. 4 in D.  Also on the schedule: Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 in G (known as “Military’).

Mozart is, of course, included in every concert.

“We focus primarily on Mozart because he wrote so much music. In his short life of 35 years, he composed over 600 pieces of music, and this means opera, and symphonies and concertos, and string quartets. He was truly prolific. Technically, we could do a festival devoted exclusively to the music of Mozart but at that time there were other great composers, such as Haydn, for instance. In fact, Haydn was a friend of Mozart’s, and they played together in a string quartet in Vienna. I suppose you could say they influenced each other. Plus, Haydn also wrote a lot of great music, including 104 symphonies and they are all so wonderful! How many of those do we have the opportunity to hear here in San Antonio? Not many. So, the festival includes the music that reflects Mozart’s time.”

How did Tchaikovsky get in there?

“We are doing only Tchaikovsky’s string quartet, the famous one,” explained Frazor with a laugh. “It will be performed by our resident quartet, the Artisan Quartet, and I pretty much let them choose their own program. But I do tell them that they must include at least one Mozart piece in their selection. This time they will play the Mozart String Quartet in B Flat, called ‘The Hunt’ on July 31.
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Concerts take place July 24, July 31 and Aug. 7 at 3 p.m.; Bennack Concert Hall, University of the Incarnate Word campus, Broadway @ Hilderband; tickets $15(student) – $45 (Adults); for tickets check www.mozartfestivaltexas.org or info@mozartfestivaltexas.org