No offense to Branford Marsalis.
The famous sax player and the Symphonia Boca Raton will open the 11th annual Festival of the Arts BOCA at 7:30 p.m. March 3, after an author’s talk the day before. But the cat of the hour may be a pink cartoon feline with a familiar song.
Even Monica Mancini didn’t know the theme her father wrote for the score of Blake Edwards’ “The Pink Panther” has racked up more than 12.5 million hits on YouTube so far.
“Every generation that comes up is introduced to it, and it has taken on a life of its own,” the singer said from her home in California. “A whole new generation may not know the name Henry Mancini, but they know his music. That man is global.”
The festival has shown classic films like “West Side Story” with a live orchestra before in the tented and seated Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real. But the 1964 comedy starring Peter Sellers with the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra at the Frost School of Music/University of Miami will be a world premiere for Boca at 7:30 p.m. March 11.
It took time to find the original score, and the yellowed pages were shown like buried treasure over cell phones, said Charles Letourneau, the festival’s artistic administrator.
“The first order of business was, where was the music? At the UCLA archives,” he said about the University of California, Los Angeles. “Everything was handwritten in Henry Mancini’s hand. It was a very exciting moment.
“Robert Schirmer, president of Schirmer Theatrical, is co-producing this whole show and he and I worked to make this happen,” Letourneau said.
MGM owns the movie rights, so it took lots of negotiating with different parties.
“The film was a big challenge. It was recorded on one track and we had to take the music out and leave in the special effects,” Letourneau said. “It all came together and now everybody wants it and we’re getting calls from all over the world. It will go to the most important orchestras and the biggest concert halls.”
No stranger to the festival or South Florida, Monica Mancini will come in to sing “Meglio Stasera,” the song Fran Jeffries sang in the movie, he added.
“Two summers ago we flew to London and did a ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ with a full orchestra at Royal Albert Hall and I sang ‘Moon River,” so when ‘The Pink Panther’ thing came up, I was willing to do something,” said Mancini, who sang at the festival here with Arturo Sandoval three years ago. “I’m in the midst of recording another CD, but I’m invited to Prague this summer. I’ll be out there with ‘The Pink Panther.’
“The legacy is very important to our family,” she added, citing her mother Ginny Mancini’s commitment to education. “So any way to keep the Mancini name out there is always a good thing.”
Tickets sales for all the festival speakers and performers have been going strong, Letourneau said.
“For [presidential historian] Jon Meacham, you can imagine why he’s popular now. This year ‘La Boheme’ is selling well and it’s a good love story. Joey Alexander was nominated for a third Grammy, not too shabby for a 13-year-old,” he said about the child prodigy pianist. “Violinist Sarah Chang will perform and Sergio Mendes is still going strong at 75. All the shows are selling, so we obviously have a lot of support from the community.”
For tickets and the schedule for Festival of the Arts BOCA 2017, visit festivaloftheartsboca.org/ or call 866-571-2787.
