Ten Grand

I recently attended a Monster Concert in Nathan Phillips Square. This production was in part the fruit of Boyanna Toyich, a motivational speaker, and RCM graduate. One of my best friends found out from her fellow pianists about a group they had joined last year, which would tour around, putting on Monster Concerts.
What is a Monster Concert? Well, in my friend’s case, their slogan was “10 pianos, 20 musicians, 200 fingers.” The phenomenon began in 1860 with a piece called “Triumphal Hymn” written by Louis Moreau Gottschalk. In 1867, it was preformed by an orchestra of 650 musicians, including 80 trumpets (hopefully they didn’t blare!). Much of Gottschalk’s music had a multi-cultural aspect that was way ahead of its time. You can read more about
Gottschalk’s life and work, if you wish.
Back to the concert, here was their repertoire:
Night in the Tropics, by Gottschalk
Overture to Semiramide, Rossini
Faust (Valse), by Gounod
Symphony No 40 (1st movement), by Mozart
Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, by F. Liszt
Overture to The Barber of Seville, by Rossini
Danse Macabre, by Saint-Saens
William Tell Overture, by Rossini
My friend, that evening, was absolutely beautiful, and she played beautifully too! I was honoured to watch her concert, along with a couple other of our friends from highschool. We saw a suprising number of former classmates from highschool there, actually, and Nathan Phillips Square was completely full.