New York radio WQXR to air CSO’s Beethoven Akademie 1808 concert this month

Maesstro Louis Langrée, with soloist Inon Barnatan, the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Akademie 1808 concert in Music Hall/AJ Waltz, photos

“Mostly Mozart Festival on WQXR,” a week-long radio festival on New York’s classical radio station, will be capped on Aug. 16 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Akademie 1808 concert performed last season in Music Hall and conducted by music director Louis Langrée.

On Monday, WQXR and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced a partnership to broadcast archival performances from the annual Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as interviews, discussions and “pop-up” performances daily from Aug. 10 to Aug. 16.  New Yorkers can listen at 105.9-FM, or anyone may stream it online at wqxr.org. On opening day, a series of pop-up outdoor performances across all five New York City boroughs will stream live on WQXR’s Facebook page.

Due to Covid-19, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, which is led by Langrée, was canceled for the first time since its founding in 1966.

The festival will close on Aug. 16 with the CSO’s recreation of Beethoven’s legendary Akademie 1808, the most important concert of the composer’s lifetime (Aug 16, 5 pm ET). Langrée had intended to lead the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in this extravagant program — four hours of some of the greatest music Beethoven ever wrote. Instead, the festival will feature the performance recorded in Music Hall on March 1, 2020 with Langrée conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and featuring the May Festival Chorus prepared by Director of Choruses Robert Porco.
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