Johannesburg Mozart Festival will include jazz concerts

'Quasi Improvisando' is the underlying theme that threads through the 4th Johannesburg International Mozart Festival (JIMF) that will take place from 27 January to 19 February 2012. However, organisers have added some jazz concerts into the programme so now the festival offers pure classical music lovers the chance to be exposed to jazz and vice versa.

The opening concert on 27 January in the UJ Theatre will feature Quattro Fusion, the jazz/classical combo of previous Standard Bank Young Artists Award winners Melanie Scholtz (vocals) and Samson Diamond (violin). They are joined by the duo of Melvin Peters (piano) and Godfrey Mgcina (percussion). They will be joined by another previous Standard Bank Young Artists Award winner for jazz, the popular saxophonist Shannon Mowday. The concert will be repeated on 28 January at a venue in Soweto.

A jazz improvisation choral concert

On 31 January, Shannon Mowday will join the Chanticleer Singers and conductor Richard Cock for a jazz improvisation choral concert. The programme features works by Duruflé, Tallis, Kraak, Delius and Mozart. On Monday 13 February, the trio music of Cologne-based pianist Benjamin Schaefer and Melanie Scholtz will play at Bassline in Newtown.

The final concert of the JIMF on 19 February in the Linder Auditorium will also be a unique jazz/classical collaboration, featuring internationally renowned conductor Kristjan Järvi. This concert will include one of the world's greatest flautists Massimo Mercelli, Misha Simonyan (violin), and jazz trumpeter Feya Faku, with Florian Uhlig on piano.

The programme on the night will include two world premieres of new works by Paul Hanmer commissioned for the 2012 JIMF (Nightjar Breaks and Nachtroep), and Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Serenade for Strings, as well as Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht.