For the past 22 summer seasons, Fort Lauderdale’s Symphony of the Americas presents its summer festival, Summerfest. Also this year, in collaboration with Musicfor International, they host an acclaimed European chamber orchestra for one month of performances throughout Florida and the Americas.  The orchestra is joined by selected members of the Symphony of the Americas, and is funded in part by the Broward Cultural Council.  Symphony of the Americas is Broward’s only professional orchestra, and Broward Center for the Performing Arts is its performance home.

For this year’s 23rd Summerfest, Symphony of the Americas will host the Mission Chamber Orchestra (MCO) in a return engagement, under the baton of Symphony Artistic Director, Maestro James Brooks-Bruzzese. On the occasion of the exhibition in 2014, the Symphony of the Americas has commissioned  Maestro Lorenzo Turchi-Floris (composer in residence) a new creation for piano and string orchestra that will be performed throughout the festival.

Summerfest begins July 14 with nearly 25 performances taking the duration of festival into mid-August.  Activities include concerts, master classes, and educational outreach, taking the masterful sounds of this great ensemble to audiences in corners of the world who have never before experienced the exhilaration of live orchestral performance. Highlighted this summer is our participation in the latest performance of the official centennial celebrations of the Panama Canal, which will be held at the University of Florida, in Gainesville.

OUR “MISSION” FOR SUMMERFEST 2014

Summerfest educational events reach over 20.000 students – introducing the masterful sounds of American, European and Latin composers. 

By prestigious performances at the Broward Center of Florida, at the Panama National Theater, at the prestigious American Universities and at the tough schools of South America where children often listen in disbelief symphonic music for the first time. 

Here begins our “mission”. Thousands of students take music education programs given by governments, helping children to develop alternative plans to those that would lead them to the streets, to physical and moral poverty.