Cortlandt
Manor, NY -- July 8, 2008. Make
plans now for Sunday, September 21
at 5PM, when Copland House launches
its 10th Anniversary season by
whisking guests off to Paris
After Dark, another of its
scintillating, annual culinary and
musical celebrations. A coterie of
lovers of fine food and music at the
renowned Le Bernardin will be
dazzled by Master Chef Eric Ripert's
culinary magic and delight in the
music of several generations of
Americans in Paris who followed
composer Aaron Copland to the City
of Lights from the 1920s on. Join
Copland House as it continues its
new tradition of these highly
imaginative, sold-out,
one-night-only events.
Amidst the chic elegance of Le
Bernardin, regularly and widely
ranked as one of the world's top
restaurants, Chef Ripert will
specially create a four-course,
gastronomic tour-de-force of classic
and contemporary French cuisine.
Woven around his epicurean panache
will be a vivacious musical buffet
of compositions by Copland, Virgil
Thomson, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom,
Philip Glass, and George Gershwin,
as well as Ravel, Poulenc, and
others, performed live by the
internationally-acclaimed Music from
Copland House ensemble and eminent
guest artists.
Paris After Dark's special
Guest of Honor is Copland's lifelong
friend Rosamond Bernier, founder and
editor of the legendary French art
journal L'Oeil, former
Paris-based Features Editor of
Vogue, and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s art lecturer
extraordinaire. Gala Co-chairs are
Ezriel Kornel, Katherine
Petitti-Kornel, and O. Anthony
Maddalena.
Ever since Franklin and Jefferson
were posted to Paris in the 1770s
and 80s, representing a group of
breakaway former British colonies,
generations of Americans have
succumbed to the spell of France's
allure. Copland was an avid
Francophile as a teenager, and spent
three years there as a young man in
the early 1920s. Feeling, like so
many others , that Paris was the
center of the cultural universe, his
sojourn was transformational, and he
began to find his musical voice
there. Upon his return, he actively
encouraged his fellow composers (and
eventually their students) to follow
his path to the French capital and
his iconic professor Nadia Boulanger.
Copland House's previous
chef-composer galas were stunning,
sold-out events: Troubadours'
with Daniel Boulud and Richard
Danielpour at Daniel in 2006 at
Daniel was hailed as “unforgettable
heavenly, heady, and divine
(Westchester magazine),
and Optimism at the Table
with Lidia Bastianich and Aaron Jay
Kernis at Del Posto last year was "a
triumph (Food and Wine).
Copland House is a unique
creative center for American music
based at the iconic composer Aaron
Copland's longtime, landmark Hudson
Valley home. Listed in the National
Register of Historic Place and an
Official Project of the White House
Save America's Treasures
program, Copland House is the only
composer's home in the U.S. devoted
to nurturing and renewing America's
rich musical heritage through a
broad range of musical, educational,
public, informational, and
electronic-media activities.
Paris After Dark will include
a wide-ranging silent auction,
offering intimate house concerts,
fine artwork and guided art tours,
yachting excursions, jewelry,
sporting and musical event tickets,
golf outings, and much more. Tickets
start at $500 ($375 tax-deductible),
and sponsorships begin at $1,250 for
two ($1,000 tax-deductible).
For additional information, visit
www.coplandhousegala.org
or
www.coplandhouse.org,
call Copland House at (914)
788-4659,
or e-mail
office@coplandhouse.org.