17 year old Albert Manginelli won the Tri-County Music Festival Youth Auditions on May 4th. The categories for the competition were strings, piano, winds, ensembles, and percussion, harp, and classical guitar in the music diversa category. The committee permitted Albert to enter on accordion. He performed Tchaikovsky’s “Overture to Romeo and Juliet” arranged by Eugene Ettore.

Albert will perform in a concert on Sunday, June 9th at 2:PM at the Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, PA, about 30 minutes from Philadelphia. The winners of this competitions often aspire to attend music conservatories and become professional musicians. Albert has clearly demonstrated that the accordion is a legitimate classical musical instrument. It is a win for accordion players everywhere!

Albert Manginelli became interested in the accordion when he heard an accordionist at a family birthday celebration. At age 12, he began studying with Maestro Daniel Desiderio. Albert has been a member of the Accordion Pops Orchestra of East Brunswick, NJ, for four years and also performs as a soloist with the orchestra. In 2010 he won second place in the Carmen Carrozza Piano Accordion Scholarship Competition; in 2011 and 2012 he won first place in the American Accordion Musicological Society Accordion Virtuoso Competition; and in 2012 he also won the American Accordionists’ Association Virtuoso Competition. Albert won Honorable Mention in the 2012 Youth Auditions for the Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra. He has been running a lawn-mowing and snow-removal service for six years and enjoys maintaining the family vegetable garden. He is a 17-year-old junior in the University Scholars Program of the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School.

Tri-County Concerts Association is a nonprofit classical music organization based in Delaware County whose mission is to foster the performance and appreciation of the highest quality solo and ensemble chamber music. It is the only chamber music series in the area run by an independent community board.
For over seventy years, Tri-County Concerts has presented four to six chamber concerts a year. In recent decades, the chamber music series has focused primarily on presenting emerging artists.

Tri-County Concerts also organizes a Youth Music Festival to identify and reward young talent. Students in grades 6-12 who reside in Delaware, Montgomery, and Chester Counties are given an opportunity to audition before and receive critiques from professional judges in a wide variety of instruments. The winners perform before a discriminating audience at the annual winners’ recital.

Tri-County Concerts Association is dedicated to continuing adult community awareness of the beauty of chamber music
and expanding children and youth’s knowledge of and exposure to chamber music, encouraging appreciation and inspiration.

Presenting solo and ensemble classical chamber music of the highest quality, the Tri-County Concerts Association has served the Greater Philadelphia Area for 73 years.William Kapell, Marian Anderson, Eugene Istomin, the Budapest String Quartet, Leontyne Price, the Julliard String Quartet, Rosalyn Tureck, and Vladimir Sokoloff have all performed in Tri-County’s concert series.