The 25th Season of the Hot Springs Music Festival will feature the music of Ludwig von Beethoven next June, to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1770. Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and it is estimated that 20,000 people lined the streets of Vienna for his funeral procession.
The new Artistic Director for the Hot Springs Music Festival, Sameer Patel, has scheduled two Beethoven orchestra works: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (Eroica), performed on the first orchestral concert, June 4, and the Overture to Fidelio, on June 9. As Maestro Patel was a student conductor with the Hot Springs Music Festival in 2008 and again in 2009, he is generously assigning the Overture to the student conductor for the 2020 Season.
Chorus Director, Lynn Payette, is arranging one of the few songs by Beethoven for the Tenors and Basses of the Hot Springs Music Festival Chorus. “All three works demonstrate the power, beauty, and sensitivity of Beethoven’s writing,” Payette said, “and are vivid examples of why his music remains so compelling and popular for the past 200 years, and why it will continue to inspire future generations.”
The 2020 Hot Springs Music Festival runs from May 31 to June 13. Festival passes can be purchased online at hotmusic.org. For more information about the Festival, please visit the website, or call the Festival office at 501-623-4763.
