Growing pains can’t silence Mozart on a Summer’s Eve

You can’t tell by looking, but the spruce trees in Manito Park have been raised on a healthy diet of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

As Mozart on a Summer’s Eve music director Verne Windham recalls, the trees were so small, relatively speaking, in the early days of the festival that he could use a bucket truck to hang parachutes between them to block out the late afternoon sun.

But after about 10 or 15 years, the trees were too tall to access.

“We’ve been there that long to see the trees grow up,” he said with a laugh.

Mozart on a Summer’s Eve, Tuesday and Wednesday in Manito Park, is now celebrating its 28th year.

Over the course of those 28 years, the festival has taken after the spruce trees.

The festival was initially held near the Duncan Garden fountain (Musicians performed on a stage Windham built himself) until growing pains caused Mozart on a Summer’s Eve to relocate to the lawn east of the fountain, in an area called Mozart Meadow.

Eventually, the festival grew to be so popular, organizers added a second night.

This year’s festival will feature performances from the Connoisseur Concerts String Octet and Wind Ensemble

The string octet features first violinists Mateusz Wolski and David Armstrong, second violinist Jason Moody and Kelly Farris, violists Julia Salerno and Sarah Bass, and cellists Zuill Bailey and Roberta Bottelli.

The octet will perform Dimitri Shostakovich’s Two Pieces for String Octet, Op. 11 and Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-Flat Major, Op. 20.

“Mendelssohn is like the 19th century Mozart,” Windham said. “There are so many commonalities between them. They were both prodigies. … The act of being musicians was so natural and easy that therefore you hear that in the music. It’s deep and wonderful but it’s pleasant and nice at the same time.”

The wind ensemble features Bethany Schoeff and Jill Cathey on oboe, Daniel Cotter and Robyn Zahand on clarinet, Emily Browne and Roger Logan on horn, and Lynn Feller Marshall and Ryan Hare on bassoon.

The wind ensemble’s performance will include Mozart’s Serenade in E Flat, and the group will be joined by guest artist Tim Augustin, a Washington, D.C.-based tenor, on several other pieces including Mozart’s “Il moi Tesoro (Go to my beloved),” from “Don Giovanni” and Vado incontro (I go to meet fate), from Mitridate, re di Ponto, “Maria” from Leonard Bernstein’s and Stephen Sondheim’s “West Side Story,” and Gaetano Donizetti’s “Una furtive lagrima (A single secret tear)” from L’elisir D’amore (The Elixir of Love).

When programming each festival, Windham hopes to find a balance between pieces by Mozart and pieces that are “Mozart with a small ‘m’.”

“It’s really an attitude,” he said. “It’s music that is just lovely to listen to whether you want to listen to it shallowly, but then as deep as you want to go too.”

As the festival has continued to expand, thanks in part, Windham said, to Northwest BachFest artistic director Zuill Bailey’s involvement, organizers have had to manage not only larger audiences both also the changing climate, which makes the weather less predictable.

Windham said that as outdoor music, Mozart on a Summer’s Eve has to take place outside, yet he feels the festival is so popular that even in poor weather, organizers couldn’t postpone or cancel the show.

But those challenges keep things interesting.

“Every year now is an experiment to keep trying things to keep the best of what we’ve had and still have that protection against the changing weather,” Windham said.