Florian ZaBach

Florian ZaBach, world-famous violinist and pops concert artist, Born August 15, 1918; Died February 25, 2006

Born in Chicago, he was the son of Florian ZaBach Sr., a native of Austria who played clarinet with the Vienna Philharmonic, and the late Anna Morganfort-ZaBach. An only child, he began his study of music first with his father, then at the Chicago Cosmopolitan Conservatory of Music, and had further violin studies at the Prague Conservatory in Czechoslovakia.

A child prodigy, who at the age of 12 made his debut with the Chicago Symphony orchestra playing the Mendelssohn concerto, Mr. ZaBach is best known for his million-selling record “The Hot Canary,” which attracted worldwide acclaim, and for his speed in playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” about which “Believe It or Not,” which clocked the performance, wrote, “he plays 12.8 notes per second ... faster than any known violinist in history.”

Upon his return to the states, he joined the music staff of Chicago’s NBC and WGN radio stations. Then he served 2? years in the Army Medical Corps as a private and a corporal. After his honorable discharge, his music career reached great heights upon being discovered in Washington, D.C., where, as the personable orchestra leader at the Mayflower Hotel, he became a favorite of the social set of the elite political scene. It was there that he was chosen by television’s Arthur Godfrey, who presented Florian on his shows several times each month for years. This led to multiple appearances on most of the mega-television shows emanating from New York at the time: Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Ken Murray, Red Skelton, Steve Allen, Jack Parr and 25 appearances on the “Tonight Show,” as well as his weekly CBS-TV shows from the Big Apple. For more than a year, he performed five one-hour shows daily, seven days a week as master of ceremonies, orchestra conductor and violin soloist on the stage of New York’s Strand Theatre on Broadway.

Then the tall, handsome blonde was called to Hollywood, where he was signed to film the new “Florian ZaBach” show, a weekly half-hour television series that was syndicated and carried nationwide in more than 90 markets, as well as most major cities throughout the world.

As his reputation progressed, each year Florian received more bids to appear with major symphony orchestras as soloist and conductor on their pops concerts here and in London, Vienna, Austria, and Genoa and Venice, Italy; Australia, and Bejing, among other concert halls. His musical arrangements and compositions are on record in the Florian ZaBach collection in the Library of Congress.

His local Electric City solo appearance with the symphony orchestra was the first Gala Concert, launching the major fundraising drive for the Scranton Cultural Center’s renovation of the Masonic Temple. Mr. ZaBach, who wrote all the arrangements, played on his appearances with many 100-piece symphony orchestras, also had countless albums on Mercury and Decca records (on which he recorded his million-selling “The Hot Canary”). During most of his career, his constant companion was his 1732 Guarnerius del Gesu violin, created in Cremona, Italy.

He was a member of the American Society of Composers and Publishers and a gold cardholder of musicians’ unions in Chicago, New York and Hollywood. A member of Our Lady of the Snows Church, Clarks Summit, Florian and his wife, Gene ZaBach, were active in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic Orchestra Association, Community Concerts Association, Allied Services, St. Francis Kitchen, Waverly Community House, Scranton Public Theatre, Broadway Theatre of Northeastern Pennsylvania, T.N.T. Theatre at the Cultural Center, Providence Circle Theatre, Keystone College, Marywood University and the University of Scranton.