America’s oldest performing arts group is looking for a child who was literally wowed by a recent classical music concert.

Earlier this month, we recorded the Handel and Haydn Society’s season finale for WCRB In Concert, where it will air in the fall — and we caught this unforgettable moment on tape.

Seconds after the Handel and Haydn Society stopped playing Mozart’s “Masonic Funeral Music” at the Boston Symphony Hall on Sunday, 9-year-old Ronan Mattin was so swept away by the music that he loudly exclaimed — for the whole auditorium to hear — “Wow!”

David Snead, CEO of the Handel & Haydn Society orchestra, tells As It Happens host Carol Off the moment a child issued an audible ‘Wow!’ during a performance of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral is proof that classical music can touch the hearts of anyone, young or old.

A little boy with autism from New Hampshire was so moved by the music at a classical concert this weekend that he uttered an enthusiastic ‘wow’ as one song came to an end — and his word of wonder could be heard all over the auditorium.

In 1770, Wolfgang Mozart sat with his father in the papal chapel to hear Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus. Stories about this immaculate setting of chant and polyphony had attracted listeners to Rome for centuries. Louis Spohr heard it, and years later Charles Dickens attempted to enter the Sistine chapel to experience its musical serenity, …