Mont Blanc Comes to Summerfest

Mont Blanc Chamber Orchestra is magnifique!
The Orchestra visited FAU in Boca Raton Sunday, July 11 for a 2010 Summerfest concert sponsored by philanthropist Madelyn Savarick and Symphony of the Americas.
The whole merry band flew in Panama the next day, but there is still one more chance to catch them: at 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 21 at Broward Center for the Arts.
This is the 19th season for Summerfest, founded and directed by maestro James Brooks-Bruzzese. The really cool thing about Summerfest is the musicians are generally much younger than you would see at a typical classical music concert.
Mont Blanc is in the French Alps, and that’s where Lorenzo Turchi-Floria founded the chamber orchestra in 2005.
Turchi-Floris is a conductor, concert pianist and composer of note. He treated the Boca audience with an American premiere of his composition, “Tempo di Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra." The piece is rather frantic in it allegro passage, and technically quite demanding, both for the pianist and the players keeping up with him.
The musicians of Mont Blanc are not only young. Some of them are quite beautiful.
Laszlo Pap is not from Mont Blanc (he is Hungarian), but he is a world class violinist and frequent collaborator with Symphony of the Americas, led by Brooks-Bruzzese.
Pap was a featured soloist on two stunning show-off pieces: Paganini’s “Witches Dance’ and Sarasate’s “Introduction and Tarantella.”
Marilyn Maingart is a virtuoso of the flute and one lovely lady in the bargain. A frequent soloist with SOA, she charmed on Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen Op. 20” and Telemann’s “Suite in A Minor for Flute, Strings and Cembalo.”
There’s much more to the show than just these titles, and if you are lucky you’ll here two encores by the whimsical, humorous American composer, Leroy Anderson. The entire concert is available on a CD recording.
Tickets may be reserved by calling (954) 462-0222 or 954-545-0088 or by visiting www.symphonyoftheamericas.org.