STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

“The Magic of Mozart” will fill the Wood River Performing Arts Theatre on Sunday as the Wood River Orchestra presents its first concert of 2024.

The free concert will begin at 4 p.m.

Janice Moulton said the concert featuring well-known works by musicdom’s favorite child prodigy, will be exciting a it is fast with lots of notes.

“Every now and then your orchestra needs to pay its respects to Mozart, one of the greatest composers and musicians to have lived,” added Conductor Brad Hershey. “His name and music are still among the most recognizable in the genre. Mozart’s music is as much fun to play as it is to listen to. There are so many notes at times, but the music is so well written that it seems to just play itself.”

The repertoire that Hershey chose to play were written in the last few years of Mozart’s short life—between 1783 and 1791.

The orchestra will play the overtures to two of Mozart’s most famous operas, “The Marriage of Figaro” and “The Magic Flute,”  the second of which premiered in Vienna just two months before the composer’s untimely death in 1791.

“The Turkish March,” or “Rondo alla Turca,” was originally part of Mozart’s Piano Sonata no. 11, but has since been transcribed for many other combinations of instruments including the orchestra arrangement presented by the Wood River Orchestra.

The centerpiece of the concert will be Mozart’s Symphony no. 38, known as the “Prague Symphony” after receiving its premier in the Czech capital in 1787.

The orchestra first presented the concept of a concert focusing on the music of a single composer when it presented a program of Franz Schubert’s music in November 2023.