The closing show for the special 30th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition is upon us. Panzera SAS will be presenting their 30th display in Montreal, their first being in 1985 and the vast majority of the closing shows since. Maestro Giovanni Panzera, who sadly passed away in 2000, was the competition’s artistic director for the bulk of its existence and his company, now represented by Maria-Grazia Gerbaudo, have been intimately involved with the competition ever since.
Once again, La Ronde’s pyrotechnic technical director, Paul Csukassy, was responsible for the creation of the soundtrack for this show, a tribute to Pink Floyd. Paul has a talent for creating fireworks soundtracks, as demonstrated in prior years with tributes to U2, The Beatles, and Queen. For this year’s soundtrack, Paul spent over 100 hours researching the music of Pink Floyd, a task made easier by the fact that he, and fireworks designer Pierpaolo Serafino are both big fans of the famous British group. Once again, Paul did the mixing at Celine Dion’s Studio Piccolo. Paul said the final mix took around 10 hours to finalize with his preferred method being to avoid having to do pitch and tempo corrections (such as is found in a “disco” mix) but to carefully pick exactly the right transitions points in the music.
The soundtrack is thus divided into four epochs, namely Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Pink Floyd as a whole. Paul said he tried to organize the tracks into these epochs and pick pieces that had a good variety of rhythm and pace, rather staying strictly chronological. Some of the pieces do not have a fast tempo, but they are powerful in other ways and this was exploited to give a natural flow of highs and lows in the fireworks themselves.
Pierpaolo Serafino (l) and Paul Csukassy (r)
Fireworks designer Pierpaolo Serafino, also a Pink Floyd fan, noted that Panzera’s style is rather different than other companies that compete in Montreal as their preferred low-level effect is the Roman Candle, for which their factory is world-renowned. However, the demands of the soundtrack meant that around 1,500 one-shots will be used in the display. However, the warmth of a display that uses predominantly Roman Candles on ramp 3 will be preserved, though he noted that the overall style of the display will be quite different this year, compared to previous years. There will be use of all ramps and some special effects, such as 6m (20 foot) diameter chromotrope wheels (this is where there’s an inner and outer wheel that rotate in opposite directions). Some special colours will be used this year, particularly very vivid whites and yellows and Pierpaolo noted that a special 200mm multi-break shell will be used to start the display, together with many other traditionally Italian shells. It should be a fitting conclusion to the 30th Edition!
