The SLSO’s celebration of W.A. Mozart begins at the very end. The circumstances surrounding Mozart’s unfinished Requiem are shrouded in mystery, but the music’s sorrow and beauty speak across the centuries. The Adagio and Fugue, another late work, is a dark and almost mystical vision. Acclaimed bass-baritone Dashon Burton returns to the SLSO in Brahms’ final song cycle, the Four Serious Songs, in an arrangement by Detlev Glanert. 

Things to Know

• “I try to always serve the composer,” says Music Director Stéphane Denève. “With Mozart this is difficult, as the music is perfect in itself. I love music to tell us its own tale, its own story. I try to find the most pure childish joy of making music and let the music speak through…”
• Tenor Ben Bliss, at home in major roles at opera houses across the globe, makes his SLSO debut. Bliss, who grew up in Kansas City, is a 2021 winner of the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills Artist Award.
• Brahms’ Four Serious Songs are among “his most personal works,” says Detlev Glanert, whose orchestration is performed on this concert. “Brahms was hard to know as a person, but here you have, for a few moments, access to the open soul of a believer in God, who knows that life will end.”