The concerts feature an enticing all-Mozart programme that includes the dramatic Overture to The Magic Flute and the remarkable Symphony no. 39, one of the last symphonies Mozart composed in what has been described as “the most astonishing period of rapid creativity in all musical history”. For family reasons, Maestro Jaap van Zweden has to withdraw from his advertised programme on 23 & 24 June 2017. The advertised soloist and programme remain unchanged. Jaap’s replacement in these concerts is David Stern, whose extensive repertoire ranges from period-instrument performances through to contemporary opera. Previously Music Director of the Israeli Opera and Switzerland’s St Gallen Symphony Orchestra & Opera, he has conducted leading orchestras in Asia, Europe and the USA, including the Shanghai and Vienna Symphony orchestras as well as Boston Lyric Opera. Renowned Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan, the first and current Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic (“a complete artist: a wonderful pianist, a probing intellect, passionately committed”, Alan Gilbert, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic), plays Piano Concerto no. 23, a sunny, lyrical masterpiece from Mozart’s Viennese period.