Rodeo Festival of Watches and Jewelry 2014 Kick Off event with Chris Botti

Sep 16, 2014,00:01 AM
 

The 2nd annual Rodeo Drive Festival of Watches and Jewelry kicked-off on Sunday evening with a concert featuring Grammy Award winning trumpeter Chris Botti. 
The PuristSPro Team joined the festivities on the famed Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  The weather during the day was scorching hot but perfect during the late evening.  The stage was set on Rodeo Drive between Brighton Way and Dayton Way but the event actually started earlier in the afternoon with a private party in the penthouse of the Luxe Hotel. 






BMW was on site with the debut of the new i8 plug-in hybrid sports car and the 5-door hatchback i3. 













The event was sponsored by GenLux magazine, The Rodeo Drive Committee and The City of Beverly Hills.  The festival itself runs all week and will also feature an open house later in the week on Thursday.  More than 10 boutiques will be hosting private events including a golf putting challenge at Richard Mille and showcasing two celebrity timepieces the RM38-01 Tourbillon G Sensor Bubba Watson, and the RM 19-01 Tourbillon Natalie Portman. Bulgari will debut their Lvcea ladies watches.  The Tourbillon Boutique, Westime Beverly Hills, Breguet, Jaeger LeCoultre and several other brands will be hosting more events during the week.




Trumpeter Chris Botti is well known and is the largest selling American instrumental artist and has received multiple gold, platinum and Grammy awards.  While we were seated and waiting for the concert to start, we were seated next to another couple that were huge jazz fans.  I learned a lot of information from them, and was intrigued by the fact that Chris Botti plays his music with a Martin Committee large-bore Handcraft trumpet made in 1939 and uses a No. 3 silver-plated mouthpiece from Bach made in 1926.  He also uses a Leblanc Vacchinao Harmon mute from the 1950's.  Initially I didn't quite understand what or how the pieces worked on the trumpet, but it was funny to hear the story told by Chris during the concert about playing the National Anthem during the 2006 AFC football championship between the Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Due to the weather he was having difficulty at the end because of the freezing temperatures but was able to pull it off.






Chris Botti and his band has been touring around the world playing concerts.  For this event he had special guest violinist Caroline Campbell join him for several songs.  Both Chris and Caroline were amazing, and even stepped down from the stage and performed in the audience.



Singer Sy Smith appeared towards the middle of the concert and sang beautifully.




And opera singer George Komsky joined for a few songs.  George was a finalist on the reality show 'America's Got Talent' and is currently touring with Chris' band.

I think the highlight and most popular song of the night that drew a standing ovation was when George, Caroline and Chris performed their rendition of the Italian song Con Te Partiro.  This song has been famously performed by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, and in my opinion Chris and his band did a nice job and personal style to Con Te Partiro. 





It was great listening to the live jazz music, and I made a video with several of the song played by Chris Botti and his band.  Hope you enjoy the music!  This was a fun event and I can't wait to the open house on Thursday evening.  I'm looking forward to seeing new watches being introduced at the event.






Regards,
ED-209

 


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I wish I could have gone; thanks for the report.

 
 By: mkvc : September 17th, 2014-01:11
Interesting to see Caroline Campbell pictured, as I am the former owner of one of Caroline Campbell's bows (but never met her during the sale process).

Wow, very cool mkvc

 
 By: ED209 : September 17th, 2014-17:12
Thanks for checking out the report. This was the first time I heard Caroline Campbell play and she was fantastic. Very cool that you were the former owner of one of her bows. Was it autographed or something that you actually played with? Regards, ED-209

how cool!

 
 By: DRMW : September 17th, 2014-17:12
Hope all is well mkvc! -MW