Blue Ridge Orchestra to Open Amadeus Festival

On Saturday, March 11, the Blue Ridge Orchestra (BRO) will help to kick off the 2017 Asheville Amadeus Festival with the matrimony-themed concert A Wedding with Wolfgang at UNCA’s Lipinsky Auditorium.

When BRO music director Milton Crotts was asked to open the festival, he was immediately inspired by one of Mozart’s most famous works: The Marriage of Figaro. “The wedding tradition you heard from your grandmother—something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue—makes a great jumping off point to think creatively about repertoire,” he says.

This four-part phrase acts as a framework for the program. The concert will open with Overture from The Marriage of Figaro to set the stage. This will be followed by the Andante from Mozart’s first and oldest symphony. The concert’s “something new” will be Finale from Symphony No. 41, the last symphony written by Mozart before his death in 1788. The concert will “borrow” Mozartiana’s Theme and Variations from Tchaikovsky.

The “something blue” for this concert features Christine Boone, an assistant professor of music at UNC Asheville, who will appear on stage dressed in blue to sing the woeful aria Dove Sono. “I’ve enjoyed singing Mozart ever since my time at Indiana University,” says Boone, “and this aria is particularly beautiful and tender.”

There will be an 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. performance of A Wedding with Wolfgang, each lasting just over an hour. Guests are encouraged to support the concert’s theme by dressing in wedding attire and taking photographs with the Mozart impersonator, who will be posing near the lobby piano before and after the event.

The Lipinsky Auditorium is located at 300 Library Lane on the UNC Asheville Campus. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for friends of the BRO and $5 for students. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit blueridgeorchestra.org.