NY's Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra Renamed as Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center

For the inaugural summer season under conductor Jonathon Heyward, the ensemble will pair old favorites with world premieres

The ensemble previously known as the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will now be called the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center. Conductor Jonathon Heyward will lead the group through the first season of his initial three-year term.

The upcoming season is presented as part of the third annual Summer for the City festival. Combining the old with the new, works by Beethoven, Bologne, and Mozart will be performed alongside contemporary works by Louis W. Ballard, Peter Lieberson, and Caroline Shaw.

The festival's opening concerts feature the North American premiere of Huang Ruo's work City of Floating Sounds, an interactive work that employs a mobile app-enabled soundscape hosted in several locations across the city.

Another highlight is the season's closing concerts, which explore the links between music and mental health. These programs include the world premiere of a work by the British-Guyanese composer Hannah Kendall, titled He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. This new piece is paired with Schumann's Symphony No. 2, Bach's Keyboard Concerto in A Major, and Bach's The Musical Offering in an orchestration by Webern.

Conductor Jonathon Heyward made his Lincoln Center debut at Summer for the City 2022. He is presently Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and is in his third year as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany.

"I believe strongly in respecting the traditions of classical music while reimagining the future, and this first season embodies that," said Jonathon Heyward. "This orchestra’s history is one I admire greatly, both from the perspective of its place in the hearts of so many New Yorkers who have found classical music through its summer performances and the incredible joy, care, and skill the musicians bring to the stage."

"Collaborating with them the past two summers has been thrilling and I know this summer will be even more so," he continued. "I am grateful to these phenomenal musicians and the audiences we’re so looking forward to welcoming this summer."