by Michael Cirigliano II

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

Music Director Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra closed their much-heralded season in triumphant fashion Saturday night, presenting Mozart’s final three symphonies—a fitting (albeit familiar) end to a season that had already seen the ensemble traverse some new and interesting territory. (Interestingly enough, this was the same program Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic were presenting this weekend to open their new season nearly 4,000 miles away from Avery Fisher Hall.)

Composed in just six weeks during the summer of 1788, Mozart’s final testament to the symphonic form presents a varied collection of miniatures that revel in serenity, comedy, and fleeting hints of pathos. Given that Mozart penned another 75 works before his death in 1791, the final three symphonies maintain a sense of youthful buoyancy, far from the somber and autumnal feel of the Clarinet Concerto, Ave verum corpus, and Requiem. Although often performed as three separate entities, these symphonies, when presented together, form a virtuosic triptych—one that Alfred Einstein himself dubbed “an appeal to eternity.”  

by Laura Wasson

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of chatting with Chris Littler and Ellen Winter from New York's own Chamber Band (along with some of their lovely fans) in advance of their midnight show at Spike Hill this week. After the break, check out an edited version of our live Facebook interview—complete with a few new questions I didn't have a chance to ask then.

Don't forget! We'll be doing more of these fun talks in the coming months, so be sure to check in with us here at FoM regularly—your favorite band could be joining us next.

by Zoë Gorman

Photo credit: Lora Robertson

Making connections across artistic genres has proven to be one of the defining features of 21st-century music, and The Impulse Wants Company—a new ballet given life by a crew of budding artists—continued this trend, oozing collaborative excellence at every turn.

Performed last week at the Joyce Theater, the ballet fused the creative talents of composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, choreographer Troy Schumacher, poet Cynthia Zarin, and the BalletCollective, as part of the vBallet 6.0 Festival. In the program's first half the collaboration centered around bringing an original composition and choreography together to exude the imagery and emotional effect of Zarin’s poem, whereas the second half focused more on the collaboration of the musical performers, who wrote Epistasis (2012) by directly interacting with one another.