SoNA
Symphony of Northwest Arkansas
Across the Silk Road: Scheherazade January 31, 2026 Walton Arts Center Akiko Fujimoto, Guest Conductor
Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384 (1782) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart b January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria d December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria
The best thing Wolfgang Mozart ever did for himself was to leave Salzburg in 1781 and set up shop as a freelance composer-pianist
in Vienna, leading directly to his metamorphosis from a promising young composer into one of music’s immortals. The reasons for Mozart’s Viennese efflorescence are many, but easily the most important is distance from his father, who by 1781 had become an unwitting obstacle to Wolfgang’s further progress. All it took was for Wolfgang to face adult life on his own without his father’s constant interference for his creative volcano to erupt in full.