For nearly forty years, San Diego has played host to a rare phenomenon in the classical music world: the Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra Festival. Far more than a simple homage to its namesake, the festival transforms the region into a vibrant creative sanctuary under the brilliant direction of Maestro Michael Francis. Each summer, the finest concertmasters and principal players leave behind their permanent chairs at legendary institutions like the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra to form a single, breathtakingly unified residency. The result is a profound, side-by-side collaboration that crackles with fresh energy, offering audiences an elevated musical experience that can only be witnessed here.

The highly anticipated Closing Night finale on June 27th swas held at the expansive, open-air stage of the Epstein Family Amphitheater at UC San Diego. Performing under the summer night sky, the All-Star Orchestra delivered a massive, emotionally charged program that perfectly mirrored the prestige of the musicians onstage.

The evening kicked off with Ignaz von Seyfried’s orchestral arrangement of Mozart’s dramatic Fantasia Fugato. The momentum built quickly with Brahms’ masterful Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, featuring two jaw-dropping soloists: internationally acclaimed violinist James Ehnes and the Los Angeles Philharmonic's principal cellist Robert DeMaine. The entire 2026 festival season culminated in a breathtaking finale with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, leaving the San Diego audience with that undeniably iconic, triumphant four-note opening echoing across the campus amphitheater. It was a fitting, high-energy punctuation mark on another spectacular season of world-class music-making in the region.

Photography by Robert O’Neill