Summer 2020: the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra performs for an audience in cars, in the parking lot of the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
“After producing more classical music concerts in the last year than at any time in its history—and during a pandemic no less—the timing of Mainly Mozart’s 32nd annual All-Star Orchestra Festival seems awkward but serendipitous,” writes Beth Wood in Sunday’s 6/6) San Diego Union-Tribune. “The first half of the open-air festival, to be held on the lawn of Del Mar’s Surf Cup Sports Park, will take place Friday and Saturday. The second half will begin June 16, the day after California lifts most of its COVID-19 restrictions…. Last summer, Mainly Mozart’s answer to the coronavirus pandemic restrictions was to [bring] in top-notch musicians from all over the country [to perform] in the parking lot of the Del Mar Fairgrounds—with honking car horns subbing for applause…. ‘We only got our June venue confirmed about two weeks ago,’ said Nancy Laturno, Mainly Mozart’s co-founder and CEO…. This All-Star Orchestra festival, conducted by Mainly Mozart music director Michael Francis, is … nine days rather than almost three weeks. Music & the Mind, a program exploring the connection between music and the brain … will reappear in 2022…. June repertoire includes pieces by Arvo Pärt, Ravel, Haydn, Beethoven and, of course, Mozart.”
