The
award-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City™ (YPC)
and its artistic director and founder Francisco J. Núñez
welcome The New York Pops and the legendary star of stage,
screen, and television Maurice Hines, who will headline the
chorus’s 2010 fundraising gala—It’s
up to you, New York—on Monday, March 15, at 7
p.m. in Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln
Center, where the YPC is the resident chorus. YPC, also in
residence at the
92nd Street Y and WNYC,
New York Public Radio, continues to better the lives of
thousands of children of all economic, religious, and ethnic
backgrounds from ages 7 to 18. Funds raised from this gala
will support general operating expenses, as well as
scholarships for more than half of the members of the
chorus.
Maurice
Hines, The New York Pops, all five divisions of the YPC, as
well as children from the YPC’s Satellite program in
New York City schools, will be joined by a roster
of exciting guest artists onstage at the Rose Theater. Among them will be the superstar
Latin and jazz percussionist
Dafnis Prieto, New York
Voices, composer Rob Kapilow, and Broadway’s Sean Bradford
and Janet Dacal.
Mr. Hines
will perform several numbers from
Sophisticated Ladies
with cast members from the acclaimed musical revue based on
the music of Duke Ellington. Following the March 15 gala, he
will star in a new production of the brassy retrospective of
big band song and dance from the Roaring 20s to the Swing
Era at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage in April and May.
Among
other gala highlights, the members of the YPC will sing a
lively compilation of musical odes to all parts of the city
from “Downtown” and “On Broadway” to “Uptown Girl” and
“Crosstown M42,” written by Rob Kapilow and mouth sounds
artist from Prairie Home
Companion, Fred Newman, which takes listeners on
a virtual musical ride on the M42 bus from the Hudson River
on the West Side to the East River. Dafnis Prieto will
demonstrate why the jazz community is calling him “the most
impressive young drummer to come on the jazz scene during
the past decade,” and Broadway stars Janet Dacal from
In the Heights
and Sean Bradford from Broadway’s
The Lion King
will perform with the YPC, including the premiere of “We
Lift you Up,” an inspirational song by Mr. Núñez and
composer Jim Papoulis written in tribute to the courage of
the Haitian people and all responders, as Haiti begins to
recover from the recent devastation.
Tickets for
the 7:00 p.m. concert only, begin at $50 and are available
now from
www.ypc.org and at the Rose Theater, 60th Street
and Broadway.
Following
the 7:00 p.m. concert, dinner will be served in the Allen Room,
where guests will dine on cuisine against a backdrop of
stunning views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline through the room’s
floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
The gala
evening, co-chaired by Nancy Bloom, Adam Chinn, Shauna
Denkensohn, Suzan Kremer, and Roger Ross, will honor YPC
board member Holcomb B. Noble and corporate sponsor
Toyota for their
extraordinary support of the YPC.
For Gala
tickets, please e-mail
ypcgala@ypc.org or call
212-289-7779, Ext. 31. More information is available from
www.ypc.org/gala
In
addition, a brand-new LX150 Vespa scooter,
which
boasts 70 to 70 miles per gallon, is being raffled off at
$100 per ticket with all proceeds going to the Young
People’s Chorus of New York City™. Raffle tickets are
available at the Gala or by calling
212-289-7779, Ext. 31.
For more than two decades, the
Young People’s Chorus of
New York City™ under Founder and Artistic Director Francisco J.
Núñez has provided children of diverse abilities and ethnic
backgrounds with a unique program of music education and
choral performance, while maintaining a model of artistic
excellence and harmony that enriches the community. In the
process, YPC has become one of today’s most influential
children’s choruses, with global performances, acclaimed
recordings, collaborations with many of the world’s most
highly regarded composers and performers, and commissioners
of new works through their celebrated Transient Glory®
series. More than 1,100 children participate annually
through YPC’s core after-school program, its Satellite
program in seven
New York City schools and its national affiliates
in Erie,
PA, and
Tenafly, NJ. Season highlights include a Carnegie Hall
collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, their Swiss debut
with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, and their third trip to Japan for 15-city tour this summer.
New York-born
Maurice Hines has
won acclaim as an actor, director, jazz singer, dancer, and
choreographer. His career began performing and touring with
his younger brother Gregory as the opening act for such
headliners as Lionel Hampton and Gypsy Rose Lee. Soon their
father joined them, and as Hines, Hines & Dad, they won fame
in the
U.S. and Europe, including 35 appearances on The Tonight Show. His
success as Nathan Detroit in the National Touring Company’s
“Guys and Dolls” launched his solo career. Since then he’s
starred in “Eubie!” on Broadway, “Bring Back Birdie,”
“Sophisticated Ladies,” and many other productions. His
film debut in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club” and
the creation of the dance company, Ballet U.S.A. with Mercedes Ellington
followed, and he was soon directing and choreographing both
stage productions and music videos. Most recently, Mr.
Hines was named artistic director of the Lincoln Theatre in
Columbus, home to Central Ohio’s flourishing
African-American culture and a Midwest precursor to the Harlem Renaissance.
All About Jazz
has written that Cuban-born drummer, composer, and
percussionist Dafnis
Prieto ”is easily the most impressive young
drummer to come on the jazz scene during the past decade.
Possessing awesome virtuosity and astonishing versatility,
Prieto has made important contributions to the music of a
broad range of leaders… His compositions are elaborate
composites melding Afro-Cuban rhythms and modern jazz
harmonies into music that is ecstatic and intelligent.”
Just 29, Mr. Prieto has toured the
U.S. and
Europe and has performed with many of the
world’s great jazz artists, such as Eddie Palmieri, Roy
Hargrove, Don Byron, Branford Marsalis, Herbie Hancock,
Arturo Sandoval, Chucho Valdez, and with his own band, the
Dafnis Prieto Quintet. As a composer, he has created music
for dance, film, and chamber ensembles and composed the
title track for Arturo O’Farril’s Grammy winning album,
“Song for Chico.” Mr. Prieto is a member of the jazz
percussion faculty at
New York University.
The New York Pops
is the largest independent pops orchestra in the
United States and the only professional
symphonic orchestra in
New York City
specializing in popular music. Led by Music Director Steven
Reineke, the orchestra performs an annual subscription
series and birthday gala at Carnegie Hall, enjoying one of
the highest subscription renewal rates of any series at
Carnegie Hall. The New York Pops was founded by former NBC
Music Director Skitch Henderson in 1983 with a mission to
create greater public awareness and appreciation of America’s rich musical heritage
through presentation of concerts and education programs of
the highest quality.
New York
Voices,