Meetings

Conferences & Symposia

Since 2001 the Mozart Society of America has organized conferences that attract an international group of scholars and performers as participants and attendees. These conferences explore various themes in Mozart studies through papers, panel discussions, library- or museum-sponsored exhibitions, and performances.

Our Next Meetings

Mozart Society of America and Society for Eighteenth-Century Music Joint Conference in Salzburg – 26-29 May, 2022: “Mozart and Salzburg”

August Franz Heinrich von Naumann, Der Residenzplatz, um 1791; Salzburg-Museum

Register HERE

Finalized abstracts and program are now available


In a letter to Abbé Joseph Bullinger, written on August 7, 1778 from Paris, Mozart states bluntly, “Salzburg is no place for my talent!” He then goes on to enumerate all the ways that he felt Salzburg was inadequate: the court musicians don’t have a good reputation; there is no theater or opera; there are no singers; the orchestra is “rich in what is useless and unnecessary—and very poor in what is essential”; there is not even a decent kapellmeister. Nevertheless, Mozart spent most of his first twenty-five years composing and playing in the Salzburg court orchestra and at the Cathedral. Of course Mozart was supposed to resume his duties in Salzburg after visiting Vienna in the spring of 1781, but he only returned to his home town for a few months in 1783.

This international conference will explore all aspects of Mozart and Salzburg, including Wolfgang’s early education and travel, especially to the nearby court at Munich; the music of Leopold Mozart, Michael Haydn, Giacomo Rust, as well as the other singers and instrumentalists at the Salzburg court; traveling opera troupes, especially Emanuel Schikaneder’s residence in Salzburg in 1780; and finally the works that Mozart wrote for Salzburg: his chamber music and serenades, symphonies and concertos, masses and other church music, and operas.

Program Committee: Paul Corneilson (chair), Dorothea Link, Simon Keefe, Daniel Melamed, Beverly Wilcox

The Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum recommends the following hotels for the conference May 26-29, 2022:

Please contact the hotels directly and use the booking code MSA2022 for special pricing.

Past Conferences and Study Sessions

Sessions at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

  • 2020: [conference cancelled due to coronavirus, session rescheduled for 2021, Toronto, OR]
  • 2019: Music and Mobility (Joint Session with Society for Eighteenth-Century Music). Denver, CO.
  • 2018: Mozart the Wunderkind in Context. Orlando, FL.
  • 2016: Mozart and the Promise of the Enlightened Stage. Pittsburgh, PA.
  • 2015: Eighteenth-Century Views of Mozart and his Music. Los Angeles, CA.
  • 2014: Mozart and his Situation. Williamsburg, VA.
  • 2013: Mozart and the Concept of Genius. Cleveland, OH.
  • 2012: Mozart’s Chamber Music and its Contexts and Mozart and the Allegorical Stage. San Antonio, TX.
  • 2010: Teaching Mozart. Albuquerque, NM.
  • 2009: Biography and Portraiture in Mozartean Myth-Making. Richmond, VA.
  • 2008: Aspects of Mozart. Portland, OR.
  • 2007: Mozart After 250. Atlanta, GA.
  • 2006: Making Opera: Mozart in the Theatre. Montréal, Canada.
  • 2005: Restoring Mozart. Las Vegas, NV.
  • 2004: Mozartean Couplings. Boston, MA.
  • 2003: Mozart and the Habsburgs. Los Angeles, CA.
    Mozart in North America: The Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles, CA.
  • 2002: Mozartean Contexts. Colorado Springs, CO.
  • 2001: Music in Mozart’s Vienna. New Orleans, LA.
  • 2000: Mozart and Women. Philadelphia, PA.
  • 1999: Mozart and Eighteenth-Century Musical Dialect. Milwaukee, WI.
  • 1998: Mozart and Representation. University of Notre Dame, IN.

Panel Sessions at Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center