The Scene In and Around Boston . . . Don't forget that the new Boston Flower & Garden Show opens this coming week at the Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, running from Wednesday, March 24 through Sunday, March 28. For complete details, visit www.thebostonflowershow.com. This columnist is honored to be sharing some of her favorite flowers and gardens in a slide lecture at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the 24th. Hoping to see you there!
New England Conservatory Gala Raises $500,000 Congratulations are in order! New England Conservatory met its goal and raised $500,000 at its annual fundraising gala, "Feast of Music," recently held at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. Following upon last year's extraordinarily successful Italian-themed event, the Conservatory this year transformed Feast into a celebration of all things French in a glamorous evening styled "Le Festin de la Musique." Event chairs for the evening were Deborah Smith of Beacon Hill and Lane Young of Back Bay. NEC's most important fundraiser each year, "Feast of Music" pairs a sumptuous dinner with brilliant performances by Conservatory students. Attracting 450 of Boston's most prominent business leaders and cultural philanthropists every year, the gala is, according to The Boston Herald, "one of Boston's Top 10 parties." Since 1997, it has raised more than $3 million for scholarships. Partnering with the Consul General of France, Christophe Guilhou (who along with his wife Nargues were Honorary Chairs), Le Festin featured classical music and jazz by French composers from Bizet to Django Reinhardt to Offenbach. The menu was designed by Michelin three-star Chef Guy Martin of Le Grand Véfour in Paris, Sensing Boston and Sensing Paris, and Le Pont du Ciel in Osaka, Japan (which was just awarded two stars by the Michelin Guide.) The wine was donated by Mas de la Dame and Taittinger Champagne. A silent auction featured a variety of delectable offerings from trips to Paris and St. Barths, Red Sox tickets, hotel weekends, spa treatments, and catered dinners. In addition to the musical and gastronomic delights of the event, NEC Alum Bo Winiker and his orchestra performed for the first time at the after-party, where guests danced to big-band classics until late into the night. Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 720 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty. NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 106-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC's opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston. NEC is co-founder and educational partner of "From the Top," a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.
Free Concert Scheduled On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Sunday, April 11, the Terezin Music Foundation (TMF) and Temple Israel of Boston will present "Silenced Voices," a concert featuring BSO members in the Hawthorne String Quartet, with Thomas Martin on clarinet and the Quincy Choral Society under the direction of John Nichols. The 3 p.m. performance in Temple Israel's Levy Auditorium (477 Longwood Ave, Boston) honors the musicians whose art sustained them in the Terezin concentration camp; the program includes chamber works by Gideon Klein and Karel Svenk, as well as the 2009 TMF commission "Songs of Sorrow and Hope," by Boston-born composer Stephen Feigenbaum. A candle-lighting ceremony led by Boston-area Holocaust survivors and Temple Israel Cantor Roy Einhorn opens the event. Admission is free. "Our program is a memorial and a tribute to the extraordinary creative determination of the Terezin artists. Sharing in their music and history is always an inspiring and moving experience," says TMF Director and Holocaust music scholar Mark Ludwig. For further information, visit www.terezinmusic.org. Enjoy! |
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Taking center stage are tulips at the 2006 New England Spring Flower Show. (Photo (c) Hilda M. Morrill)