Category Archives: Art Events

Choral Arts Gala!

Posted on December 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

On Monday night, we went to the Choral Arts Society’s 32nd annual holiday concert and dinner gala at the Kennedy Center.

600 people, including dignitaries, enjoyed the 90-minute concert before the gala. We snapped General Dynamic’s Walt Oliver, General Jim Jones, Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhán, Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogneir, Choral Arts executive director Debra Kraft, and board member Olwen Pongrace.

Event sponsors included First Potomac Realty’s John Sadlik and Nick Smith surrounded by Smith’s wife Deborah and executive committee member Cinnie Fehr.

Auction chair and Northrop Grumman’s Mary Shaffran, Choral Arts member Mike Elmore, and board member Rosa Lamoreaux.

ECS Solution’s George Wilson is flanked by GW students Alex and Max Schroder and finance committee chair UGL’s Cathy Jones.

**Photos by Chris Avery

(Originally published in Bisnow’s TheScene on 12.18.12)

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Ballet Scraps Winter Dance Party, Adds 200 More Guests to Fall Soiree

Posted on October 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Digital Lightning washed the venue in shades of red lighting with gobos of bats on the ceiling.

The Washington Ballet’s Women’s Committee hosted its annual fall soirée on Friday night with a chic Dracula-inspired party for 500—200 more people than last year’s Gatsby-themed affair—at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The gala serves as the first of five annual events during the ballet season, but organizers decided to pare that number down to four this year, cutting the Jeté Society of young professional’s annual dance party in January, and instead combining it with the soirée.

“We wanted to grow this event into something bigger, so we’re really pumping the Jeté society’s outreach and efforts into the soirée,” said Liz Sizer, the ballet’s manager of special events.

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To make the event a draw for a younger crowd, the Women’s Committee offered a special $150 Jeté ticket in addition to its standard $250 V.I.P. and $200 general admission offerings. The combined outreach efforts and new pricing structure resulted in attendance upward of 500 guests.

The group also changed venues this year from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2011. Sizer searched for a space for the live auction that would keep people engaged within the cocktail-style format. “Last year’s event was compartmentalized from room to room, and I wanted something large and open with one big space,” said Sizer. “The museum is like a theater in the round in that no matter what level you are on you can see what is going on.” The venue change resulted in $15,000 being raised—about $20,000 less than last year due to lower-valued items—from the auction hosted by 97.4’s Tommy McFly and Kelly Collis. Despite the lower amount, Sizer added that the crowd was more engaged this year with the round robin setup of the museum.

Syzygy Event Productions, the team behind the ballet’s spring Queen of Hearts Ball, worked with Occasions Caterers and Digital Lightning to turn the museum into a gothic Dracula lair inspired by the ballet’s first production of the season. The crew utilized blood-red linens and lighting alongside black furniture, floral arrangements, and candelabras to decorate the all-white space. Local DJs, Blurry Vision and EZGruuv,captured the energy of the Jeté dance party post-auction for dancing until nearly 1 a.m.

(Originally published 10.8.12 in BizBash Washington, photos by Tony Brown/Imijination Photography)

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Kennedy Center Closes Pennsylvania Avenue for Aerialists Show on Post Office Tower

Posted on May 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

Photo: Daniel Schwartz


The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts shut down Pennsylvania Avenue on May 11 for one of the evening performances of its Look Up! Night Street Festival, the after-dark portion of the Look Both Ways Street Arts Across America festival that offers free performances around the city. Nearly 4,000 people turned their attention upwards, as Project Bandaloop took to the side of the Old Post Office Pavilion with an nearly hour-long aerialist dance performance.

“It’s an opportunity to really stretch our audience’s understanding of what performing arts can be,” said Garth Ross, vice president of community engagement for the performing arts center. “Project Bandaloop fused the extreme discipline of climbing with contemporary dance and in doing so changes our perspective about what dance is and how it can bring us together in different ways.”

The Kennedy Center worked with Atmosphere Lighting to spotlight the performers from a hidden platform between two turrets of the building hidden from the view of the audience.

(Originally published 5.15.12 in BizBash Washington)

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Kennedy Center Honors Follows Star-Studded Performances With Dinner-Dance for 2,000

Posted on December 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Two dance floors flanked the band setup just outside the opera house in the grand foyer.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosted its 34th annual honors awards program and dinner last weekend, recognizing excellence in the various fields of the performing and visual arts. The night’s honorees were actress Meryl Streep, singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, singer Barbara Cook, and saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins.

The Kennedy Center Honors, televised on CBS in late December each year, serves as the culmination of 15 luncheons, dinners, and meetings throughout the weekend in celebrating the year’s award winners, who received medallions during a private gala hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Department of State on Saturday night.

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For the honorees, Sunday’s events officially began with a pre-reception hosted by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House, including special members of the National Artists Committee who nominated the recipients. Inside the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, the three-hour program, produced by founder George Stevens Jr. and co-writer Nick Vanoff, featured performances by Patti Lupone, James Taylor, Smokey Robinson, Glenn Close, and Ravi Coltrane, all of whose participation remained secret until they took the stage. Other stars of the big and small screens paid tribute to the honorees with speeches from past honoree Robert De Niro, and Stanley Tucci, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, and host Caroline Kennedy.

Carolyn Peachey of Campbell, Peachey and Associates once again coordinated the supper dance following the show. Nearly 2,000 guests dined at 171 tables arranged in the grand foyer and on the two stages at either end of the hall, the only time during the year when this memorial space is used for a dinner event. DC Rental provided linens in blue, lime green, hot pink, and orange, topped with colorful tropical centerpieces from JLB Floral in silver vases of varying heights and shapes to decorate the space.

In-house caterer Restaurant Associates served a three-course meal, beginning around 11 p.m. with a rustic cobb salad. Then came the main course of poussin de mattone, ratatouille, and celery root-potato puree followed by a selection of sweets for dessert.

The Boeing Company, Delta Air Lines, and Audi sponsored the event along with CBS.

**Photos: Daniel Schwarz

(Originally published in BizBash Washington 12.6.11)

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Washington Ballet Opens Season With New Gatsby-Themed Gala

Posted on October 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

(Originally published 10.4.11 in BizBash Washington)

Ballerinas performed an excerpt from The Great Gatsby just before the live auction and DJ began.


The Washington Ballet’s Women’s Committee reshuffled its fund-raising plan with the launch of the Ballet Soiree on Friday night. The group returned to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after the success of its wine tasting event there in January, and refocused its efforts from two events per year—one fashion-focused, one wine tasting—to the soiree for 400 people as its new signature gala to kick off the new season.

“[The committee] used to do two smaller events and they took the format of the wine tasting that was really a success last season and created more of a gala kickoff for the fall,” said the ballet’s manager of special events and stewardship Elizabeth Early. “We felt like [a fall kickoff] was really lacking from the event calendar so we plan on this being an annual event.”

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With the effort of the entire 100-woman committee focused on this one event, the group doubled its ticket and sponsorship dollars compared to the January event. Early noted that while attendance increased by 100, the levels at which sponsors donated increased overall, resulting in roughly $94,000 being raised–more than twice as much as was raised at the wine tasting event last year. Montblanc served as the night’s top sponsor with companies Batch 19, Smooth Amber Spirits, Ace Beverage, and Capital Wines stocking the six bars.

The night took inspiration from the company’s first production in November, The Great Gatsby. Organizers turned the rooftop and two interior rooms of the chamber into a speakeasy-style atmosphere. A costumed gangster greeted guests upon arrival at the V.I.P. reception, which started an hour before general admission, asking invitees to recite the password they received after confirming their attendance. Organizers worked with retail window designer Micheal Horton from New York to design a layout upstairs that required guests to weave through empty offices and climb two flights of stairs before knocking on the rooftop door to gain access to the party.

Fedoras, cigarette holders, candy cigarettes, chocolate cigars, long pearls, and feather headbands on the cocktail tables helped the non-costumed guests get into the spirit of the night. Jazz band Hot Club of DC performed throughout the V.I.P. and general admission receptions, the latter of which took place inside a smaller room of the venue adjacent to the main event space. Before turning the night over to the live auction and DJ Pitch One for dancing, members of the ballet company performed an excerpt from the night’s namesake production.

**Photos: Tony Brown/ImijPhoto.com

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Hirshhorn Museum Opens Warhol Exhibit With Factory-Style Party

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

(Originally published in BizBash Washington on 9.28.11)

The company also had a carmine red lounge with blue pillows.


The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden celebrated the opening of its new exhibit “Andy Warhol: Shadows” on Thursday for nearly 600 people. Harking back to the 1970s, organizers brought in corrugated metal walls, silver accents, and bright furniture and lighting to create an atmosphere similar to Warhol’s own Factory parties.

“Since we have the opportunity to have these incredible paintings—102 of them—seen together for the first time, we wanted to capitalize on that and all that goes along with Warhol’s life and how he held his own parties,” said Hilary Freestone, development specialist of exhibition and programs, who worked with the museum’s special event coordinator, Caroline Elliot, to design and execute the opening.

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The night began with private dinner for 60 of the museum’s trustees and largest donors in the third-floor Lerner Room overlooking the Mall. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom draped black linens on the circular tables, which had a different color place setting at each table. Following the dinner prepared by Ridgewells Catering, the decor company converted the space into a V.I.P. lounge for the rest of the evening with curves sofas and a new lighting scheme.

The main reception took place outside on the museum plaza, where Chicka Chicka Boom Boom created three lounge areas using Warhol’s favorite colors—aubergine, chartreuse, carmine red, yellow, midnight blue, and white—for sofas and pillows. Ridgewells also set up four food stations with small bites like sliders, kebabs, fried mac-and-cheese bites, and hummus and veggie cups, as well as a dessert station of black and white chocolate treats.

DJ Matt Bailer played an update mix of 1970s-inspired songs throughout the night, while guests mingled outside and wandered through the Warhol exhibit on the second floor of the circular museum.

**Photos: Freed Photography (lollipops, red sofa), Tony Brown/Imijination Photo

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