OSTERVILLE, Mass. (A.W.)–On July 25, the Andreassian Music Fund (AMF) presented “The AM DUO: A Summer Concert by the Sea” in Osterville. The reception and musical evening was co-hosted by Armand Andreassian and Ingeborg Saraceno at the latter’s elegant summer home. Approximately 60 guests feted on hors d’oeuvres and champagne on a rare beautiful Saturday, and gathered in the living room to hear the performance of the AM DUO.
Andreassian presented the musicians, acknowledged Saraceno for her generosity, and expressed his gratefulness for a clear, sunny day during a record-breaking rainy summer. He then reflected on a similar event he had organized over 20 years earlier at the Saraceno home in Newton with cellist Suren Bagratuni—who was introduced as “someone we’ll be hearing more of on the international stage.”
Andreassian felt the same of violinist Emil Altschuler, a graduate of Yale and Julliard, and guitarist Jerome Mouffe, who studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and is currently in a doctoral program at the New England Conservatory with famed guitarist Elliot Fiske. The AM DUO has been described as versatile in many styles, presenting tango, gypsy, and contemporary works alongside classical masterpieces by Bach, Paganini, and more.
(In a recent review, the music director and conductor of the Waltham Philharmonic Orchestra had noted that “Altschuler and Mouffe’s performance of Piazolla at the Gardner Museum was the highlight of the evening; their playing combined the sensuality, elegance, and edginess balanced with refinement that make Piazolla’s music so beautiful.”)
The evening’s concert featured the works of Bach, Manuel de Falla, Paganini, and Piazzolla. The post-concert reception for the guests saw world-renowned trumpeter and director of the BBC Jazz Orchestra Jigs Wigham, who said the performers were “musicians who are also artists.”
Mimo Saraceno, the former Italian cultural attaché for Canada, also commented that it was a first-rate event. Judy Papazian of Watertown added that the evening performance was one of the most romantic she had attended.
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