Created by USF Graduate Franz Mantini, this unique event has brought world class artists to the stage in a special concert to benefit scholarships in the USF School of Music and the USF College of Engineering.

Previous guest artists have included principal players from the Florida Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and San Diego Symphony as well as the Canadian based Lafayette String Quartet.

To date the concert has created total endowments in excess of $100,000 for the Jacques Abram Memorial Scholarship for Piano in the USF School of Music and the Franz Mantini Scholarship in the USF College of Engineering and more than 50 students have received assistance as a result of these performances and the generous donors that have made them possible.

Violinist and Florida Orchestra Concertmaster Jeffrey Multer joins Pianist Franz Mantini for a program of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Gershwin and more.

$20: General Admission

Violinist Jeffrey Multer has been recognized worldwide for his passionate performances, extraordinary depth of musical understanding and brilliant technique. A native of upstate New York, Multer made his Kennedy Center debut in 1993, and since that time he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with orchestra and as a chamber musician throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia. Multer was appointed concertmaster to The Florida Orchestra in 2006. In addition to his post with The Florida Orchestra, Multer currently serves as concertmaster at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This also marks his eighth season as artistic director of chamber music at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina. Praised for his dynamic and accessible programming style, is also artistic director of the newly formed Palladium Chamber Players in St. Petersburg, Florida. Prior chamber music positions include the Oxford Quartet, where at age 28 he was appointed first violinist. In 2001, he was asked to join the critically acclaimed Elements Quartet, whose New York series was named Best Classical Music Event of 2003 by The Washington Post.

Multer has performed numerous times at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall and the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Recently he has appeared at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Rudolphinium in Prague with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Past festival appearances include Great Lakes, Barga Tuscany, Tibor Varga in Budapest, Central Vermont and Breckinridge, CO. This season in addition to his busy concert schedule, Multer made his debut at the Casal’s festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In May of 2013, he became one of the few United States artists to travel to Cuba, where he appeared as soloist and conductor with the Cuban National Orchestra in Havana.

Multer began violin studies at age 5. At 16, he moved to New York City to continue studies at The Juilliard School where he was the recipient of a Lincoln Center Fellowship. His teachers include Lewis Kaplan, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Gerald Fischbach and Arnold Steinhardt. Coming from a long line of accomplished musicians, he is the seventh Multer to have attended Juilliard.

Multer has recorded for Albany and Naxos records.

Pianist Franz Mantini has maintained an active schedule of solo and chamber music performances in the Tampa Bay area and beyond for nearly thirty years. Mr. Mantini studied with renowned artist Jacques Abram at the University of South Florida where he appeared numerous times in solo recitals and as soloist with the USF Symphony Orchestra as winner of the annual Concerto Competition.

His local credits include a combined thirty solo and chamber performances at what is now the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. He has collaborated with many current and former principal members of the Florida Orchestra as well as members of the Houston Symphony and Formosa String Quartet and has appeared in concerts with the Lafayette String Quartet and as concerto soloist with various community orchestras.

Mr. Mantini has been a regularly featured artist at the Carrollwood Cultural Center since its inception where he created the Strings in the Spring series, which has featured both local and international artists annually for over a decade. Guests have included former and current Florida Orchestra Concertmasters Amy Schwartz Moretti and Jeffrey Multer, TFO Principal Cellist James Connors, Internationally acclaimed violist Che Yen Chen and many more.

In addition to his musical endeavors, Mr. Mantini earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a master’s degree in Engineering Management from the University of South Florida and has applied his training at a variety of companies in the Tampa Bay area. He resides in Tampa with his wife Julie and sons Gabriel and Gianni.