We've had a strong relationship with Austria for the last eight to 10 years, and they're planning enormous things next year, too.

That would have been very expensive and difficult to do, so we (arts community leaders) persuaded Pam to let us honor Mozart using local resources.

As one of the largest Mozart festivals in North America, we knew we had to do special programming next year. Rather than just doing interesting or obscure Mozart programming, we decided to turn it into a community celebration, multidisciplinary, lasting an entire year and a true collaboration.