On Tuesday afternoon at the Annecy Castle Museum, there were more fireworks, this time from flautist Clément Dufour with Tristan Pfaff on piano, who gave us subtlety, charm and elegance in their interpretation of works especially composed for flute and piano by Prokofiev, Fauré and Poulenc.

In the evening at the Church of St. Bernadette, in a programme devoted to American music, the Annecy Campus Orchestra directed by Fayçal Karoui, with Denis Matsuev on solo piano, performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue; excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and, finally the colourful and eccentric celebration of Mexican rhythms in Arturo Marquez’s Danzon No. 2.

Later, the Festival’s artistic directors, Pascal Escande and Denis Matsuev, together with Andrew Cheglakov and Maya Avelicheva, respectively founder and president of the AVC Charity Foundation, hosted a reception at the Château des Avenières to mark the Annecy Classic Festival’s fifth anniversary.

Victor Alexandrov, the AVC Charity Foundation music reviewer