Established in 2011, and led by director, cellist, and music educator Sharon Rizzo, MountainTop Strings of California is an advanced strings program that is made up of young musicians from the ages of 13-18, and includes young people from the communities of the Big Bear Valley and Lake Arrowhead, and is a non-profit organization under the Lighthouse Project of Big Bear. This very talented group performs locally in Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, as well as in having been invited to perform in Carnegie Hall and even overseas. Most recently, MountainTop Strings toured Italy, performing in such venues as the Pantheon in Rome and the Duomo in Orvieto.