Soccer horror! Mozart’s ghost is seen in a Newcastle shirt

Images of Amadeus are popping up all over Newcastle, a city more fanatical about football than classical music.

From the press release:

The portrait was commissioned by Royal Northern Sinfonia, to reflect what Music Director Lars Vogt sees as the ‘true’ face of a composer we all think we know.  “Somehow we’ve come to think of his music as pretty, brilliant and maybe even a little two-dimensional,” said Vogt, “But in fact the more you listen to him the more you realise that we’ve got him wrong. That music is often dramatic, daring, edgy and, yes, dark, and those qualities must have been there in the man.”

The striking new portrait, by renowned American artist Tim O’Brien … was influenced by images of iconic contemporary musicians Johnny Rotten, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton.

Vogt and the orchestra will be giving ‘pop-up performances’ throughout the season of some of Mozart’s darker chamber music – in some surprising venues, very far from the glamour of a concert hall. The precise locations will be revealed on social media just before the performances occur, but they will reflect some of the darker corners Mozart would have encountered in 18^th century Vienna.