For Mary Papoulis, personal expression is a priority

For Great Falls Symphony Association’s violinist and co-concertmaster Mary Papoulis, live performances offer audiences a chance to experience a moment in time that they will never experience again.

“When composers write a concerto, they often leave space in the music for an artist to bring in their own creativity,” says Papoulis, who was just 15 when she first learned Mozart’s D major violin concerto. “At that time, I just played what was on the page, (but I soon learned) that cadenzas offer the freedom to go beyond the page, to improvise, to make music that is just in that moment in time.”

A cadenza is a musical term for an improvised ornamental solo passage.

The audience at the Nov. 9 performance of the GFSA’s “Mozart” concert will hear music that has never been played before and won’t be ever heard again when Papoulis shares her once-in-a-lifetime cadenza.

“Personal expression to the audience is a priority—it goes beyond what I can do on the violin, it’s what I can express as a human being,” she says.

The Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major will be paired with Mozart’s most recognizable symphony, the by-turns elegant and fiery No. 40 in G minor.

Opening the program will be Overture to the Anonymous Lover by the famous Parisian polymath Joseph Boulogne, the subject of the 2022 film Chevalier.

The two Mozart pieces on the program were written at very different times in the composer’s life. In the mid-1770s, Mozart was a teenager when he wrote all five of his violin concertos. He was at the end of his short life—he died at 35—when he wrote Symphonies 39, 40 and 41 in the summer of 1788.

Mozart was an expert at understanding his audiences, honed since his days of climbing into Empress Maria Theresa’s lap as a 6-year-old. His Symphony No. 40 was meant to impress and delight the cosmopolitan audiences of Vienna and beyond.

Papoulis learned how to read her audiences over three decades of appearances that ranged from rural school houses to major concert halls.

“When I envision playing for an audience, I have a sensation of gathering the energy in the room. One of the keys I use for that is silence. I love the sense that when I pause, it gets silent and there is a ripeness in that silence,” she says.

“It’s an opportunity to share with the audience and have them be a part of the experience, being there with me, in that moment.”

New amenities for this season’s concerts, held in the Mansfield Theater in downtown Great Falls, include the availability of beer and wine, a free coat check run by the GFSA’s Youth Orchestra, and a Maestro Lounge reception after each concert. This performance starts at 7:30pm.

Tickets for MOZART start at $49 for adults, $43 for seniors, $14 for students, and are available online at or by calling the Symphony office at 406-453-4102.

This performance of MOZART, with featured guest artist Mary Papoulis, is sponsored by Bern Insurance. The season sponsor is D|A|Davidson.