Elkhart County Symphony – Classics at the Woodland

Season 78 Begins at the Woodland!

The Elkhart County Symphony’s marvelous Season 78 premiere presents works by Mozart and Shostakovich, and more, from the tranquil comfort of the new outdoor Woodland Pavilion at Elkhart’s Wellfield Botanic Gardens

“Classics at the Woodland,” the Elkhart County Symphony’s 2025-26 season premiere, presents wondrous orchestral music from the new, outdoor Woodland Pavilion performance area at Elkhart’s Wellfield Botanic Gardens. On Sept. 7—within the serene, late-summer splendor of Wellfield, and now unhindered by any potential for uncooperative weather—the Symphony performs Mozart’s Overture from Marriage of Figaro, Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana (Mascagni), L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2 (Bizet/Guiraud), and Festive Overture (Shostakovich).

The Symphony’s principal horn, Debra Inglefield, is featured performing Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat. Ms. Inglefield, a revered music teacher in our area, has been teaching French horn at the University of Notre Dame since 1999 and has performed with numerous bands and orchestras, including the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra and the Elkhart Municipal Band. She is currently the Adjunct Instructor of Horn at Indiana University South Bend, Andrews University, and the University of Notre Dame.

A repertoire fit for a splendid location

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat was completed in 1786. The renowned composer wrote the manuscript for the concerto in red, green, blue, and black ink, which was thought to be a humorous attempt by Mozart to jostle his longtime friend Joseph Leutgeb—the intended horn player for all four of Mozart’s Horn Concertos. The work is in three movements and is thought to have been first performed sometime in 1786.

Considered by most to be one of the greatest operas ever written, The Marriage of Figaro was composed by Mozart in 1786, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte and based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (“The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro”). The opera, which premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on May 1, 1786, consistently ranks among the top 10 most performed operas worldwide (Operabase) and is considered foundational to the operatic repertoire. Marriage of Figaro—voted the greatest opera ever written by 172 opera singers in a 2017 BBC poll—is regarded as a masterpiece of operatic comedy. Music from the opera has been popularized through appearances in countless films and television shows.

Dmitri Shostakovich composed Festive Overture in 1954 after a piece was commissioned for the Bolshoi Theatre’s celebration of the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution. The score, which begins with a brass fanfare later reappears before the work’s coda, is one of the most beloved and enduring of Shostakovich’s occasional scores.