Mike and Mary Wallace |
Cynthia
Lufkin and Pamela Fiori |
Peter
Martins and
Kitty Carlisle Hart |
Wynton
Marsalis and
Renee Fleming |
Tony
Newman and
Christine Baranski |
THE
JUILLIARD SCHOOL
Renee
Fleming Comes Full Circle
With A Dress From Student Days
Story by Roger Webster
Photos by Rob Rich
HAD an incredibly good time at the Juilliard School’s biannual
benefit concert and dinner dance at Lincoln Center, dubbed
Classified Jazz. It raised $1.2 million to support the 98-year-old
institution’s diverse programs.
The
gala chairmen were Mary Rodgers, who wore a colorful jacket
decorated with a collage of romantic images by Amy Zerner,
her husband Henry Guettel, Marvin Hamlisch and his
wife Terre Blair.
The
party, celebrating the third successful year of the school’s
Jazz Studies Program, began with a cocktail reception where
guests, such as Kitty Carlisle Hart, in a beaded and
feathered sheath, Mike and Mary Wallace, Muffie
Potter Aston, Jonathan and Somers Farkas, Town
& Country’s Pamela Fiori and Mike Cannon,
and Janet Freeman, chatted with Juilliard’s president Joseph
W. Polisi and his wife Elizabeth, board chairman Bruce
Kovner, board members Stephanie and Carter
McClelland, and co-chairmen Julie Anne Choi, Melanie
and Edward Johnson, Bradley Jack, and Dan and
Cynthia Lufkin, in a white shirt and long taupe skirt by
Gianfranco Ferre.
The
concert in the Juilliard Theater was hosted by alums Christine
Baranski in a black ruffled Vera Wang dress with a diamond
bracelet by Gilan and Keith David, whose new TV series, The
Big House, just premiered on ABC.
Renee
Fleming
and Wynton Marsalis, also alumni, opened the show with Handel’s
Let the Bright Seraphim with the Juilliard Baroque
Ensemble and brought the house down with cool medley of Answer
Me, My Love and Caravan.
Renee
Fleming said, “Let’s talk about fashion. The truth is I
never know what to wear to galas. In fact, I told Juilliard that
they should have a class called Evening Gowns 101,—it’s
absolutely crucial.
“Today,
I went to my gown closet—yes, I have a gown closet—and there
way back at the end of the rack was this lonely black dress that
I’d bought at a thrift store when I went to Juilliard.
“I’m
wearing it tonight, so this dress has brought me full circle from
a student in the wings to performing here tonight.”
June
Noble Larkin was honored for her extraordinary generosity to
the arts. Good news: June said her particular new interest was
jazz!
New
York City Ballet’s ballet master in chief Peter Martins
introduced the world premier of his jazzy ballet Café Music.
He dedicated his choreography to philanthropist Irene Diamond.
The
celebration continued with dinner for 650 supporters inside a
festive tent erected just outside the school on the 65th Street
overpass.
There
was Frank Larkin, Joan and Michael Steinberg,
Michael Kahn, director of the drama department, Susan
and Elihu Rose, Agnes Gund in a black and white
harlequin top, Alice Tittley with Judd Jones, who
was bursting with pride because he’d been Keith David’s acting
teacher at Manhattan’s High School of the Performing Arts, and
chanteuse Rondi Charlston. |
