Festival brings Mozart to Church Hill, examines Mozart’s life

Maeve Bauer, Contributing Writer 

People of all ages gathered together in Church Hill for various presentations and performances revolving around Mozart. 

Classical Revolution RVA’s annual Mozart Festival occurred on Oct. 7 and featured a wide range of performers and speakers. Classical Revolution RVA hopes to integrate more classical music into Richmond’s music scene, according to their website.  

Ellen Riccio founded the Mozart Festival in 2014. She wanted to host a showing of the film “Amadeus,” according to Becca Longhenry, the general director of Classical Revolution RVA.

“She decided to make a day of the event, and filled Carytown with Mozart’s music,” Longhenry said.

The Mozart Festival occupies different districts in Richmond every couple years. The event has previously occurred in Carytown, Jackson Ward and Scott’s Addition, and for the past two years has been in Church Hill, according to Classical Revolution’s website.

This year the heart of the festival was located at St. John’s Episcopal Church, with different activities scattered around Church Hill.

The festival included events like Wolife Time, then Race and Representation, Austrian Wine Tasting, Climate in the Time of Mozart, Music in the Time of Mozart, Beer in the Time of Mozart, Coffee Shopera, RVA Baroque, and concluding with The Main Course, according to their website. 

One Voice Chorus Chorale and the Orchestra of the Revolution performed The Main Course, according to Longhenry. The performance featured a plethora of Mozart’s most famous pieces.    

The Mozart Festival officially kicked off at 10 a.m. with the Wolfie Time Children’s event at Bellevue Elementary school. The event included a children’s recital, activities and a performance by local band The Sweet Potatoes.. 

Allison Smith and opera singer Pam Buie lead the conversation on Race and Representation in Mozart at noon. They discussed how Mozart treated African American characters and how to approach those characters today, according to Longhenry. 

Climate in the Time of Mozart included a presentation from Jeremy Hoffman who discussed the state of the climate during Mozart’s life and how much it’s changed since then. 

“It’s really an opportunity to share a little bit about what we know about climate history, just in general with an audience that may not typically see or get exposed to the overlaps between art and science,” Hoffman said. 

Hoffman feels Mozart lived at a very critical time in Earth’s history, he said. He lived in the last era before the world’s climate was in the hands of humans. 

Danah Dargon performed and led the chorus as a soloist in the concluding event, The Main Course. Though Dargon is not a member of One Voice Chorus, she has worked with them many times, she said. 

Dargon has not performed at the Mozart Festival before, but as a VUU and VCU alum she always tries to keep her “foot to the ground” with local events, she said. 

Mother-daughter duo Abby Parsanna and Anjana Omen attended The Main Course. They had never heard of the Mozart Festival before but attended to watch Parsanna’s brother’s violin teacher perform, according to Parsanna

Omen was very touched by the performance; it brought her to tears, she said. Omen found the music to be “out of the world,” and wished that Richmond had places she could go everyday to listen to classical music. 

“It’s so rare to have the opportunity to come and listen to such a big group of brilliant musicians coming together,” Omen said.