|
|
Post by the Scribe on Nov 22, 2023 20:29:34 GMT
Bernstein and Ronstadt Issue Appeal on AIDS
Share full article
Dec. 4, 1986
In conjunction with a benefit scheduled for this Sunday, Leonard Bernstein and Linda Ronstadt have made an urgent appeal to the public to support AIDS research.
''At this moment there is critically important medical research that is being delayed purely by lack of funds,'' Mr. Bernstein said, adding that he decided to participate in the benefit when he heard that AIDS research was being held in abeyance because of lack of finances.
''The great artists appearing on Sunday agree with me that we are in crisis. We cannot conquer this epidemic without the same generosity and commonality of spirit.''
''It's a devastating disease and everyone of us must join in the effort to end it, right away,'' Miss Ronstadt said.
The benefit, which is to be held Sunday at 7 P.M. at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, will include Mr. Bernstein, Miss Ronstadt, Hildegard Behrens, Eileen Farrell, Marvin Hamlisch, Marilyn Horne, Bernadette Peters, Isaac Stern and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Tickets, which cost $1,000 each, include a cocktail reception, the performance and a dinner immediately afterward at the New York Academy of Art. Some tickets are still available and may be purchased by calling 581-2571.
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 4, 1986, Section C, Page 26 of the National edition with the headline: Bernstein and Ronstadt Issue Appeal on AIDS. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe |
|
|
|
Post by the Scribe on Nov 22, 2023 20:31:28 GMT
Leonard Bernstein and AmFAR
leonardbernstein.com/about/humanitarian/aids-awareness-and-funding-for-research
by Mathilde Krim, Ph.D
I first met Lenny a very, very long time ago, under a blistering Israeli sun, when the world was young, liberty still new to the land, and its nation exulting in a just-completed concert hall in Jerusalem. Lenny crowned that day with his music and his passion for life and for his people. To us and to him, laughter and tears came easily that night, but the tears were mostly of joy.
Tears of another kind began to be shed too often in New York in the early eighties. I had become deeply disturbed by a new and mysterious epidemic that was mercilessly killing young men. With a few others, I was struggling to raise funds for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), so as to ensure that all that could be done to confront the killer would be done.
Lenny also wanted to understand and he also wanted to help. In 1986, he and his manager, Harry Kraut, brought us a beautiful idea. Before we awarded our last grants that year they proposed to raise money quickly with a special concert in which all kinds of artists would perform pieces other than from their repertoires. And so it was that six short weeks later, on a cold December night, Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt sang "Ave Maria" together, Isaac Stern played "Fiddler on the Roof;" Bernadette Peters performed the First Would War song "My Buddy," and Hildegard Behrens sang, "Falling in Love Again." The evening ended with a standing and swaying audience joining the performers singing "Somewhere" from West Side Story. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. It was another Lenny "miracle night," unforgettable for its intensity, beauty and depth of emotion. It also provided manna from heaven to several unfunded but most deserving AIDS research projects.
Lenny came back to me again, in 1987, with a proposal for a major event at Carnegie Hall to be called "Music for Mathilde." I was stunned that he, from Olympus, should think enough of me to suggest such a title. He had followed our work and he had become informed about the meager government efforts to fight it, particularly in the developments of treatments. In the course of a number of conversations with him, I succeeded not only in changing the name of this concert simply to "Serenade," but also in explaining the possibility that AmFAR could organize practicing physicians - whom we would also train and support - into a nationwide network to test promising new drugs at the community level, so as to greatly increase the number of people with AIDS who would have access to new treatments. This was, in 1987, a daring new idea, but one of unquestionable humanitarian value. Lenny and Harry Kraut liked it.
"Serenade" took place in December of 1987 and played to a packed house at Carnegie Hall, including a group of nurses who worked in AIDS wards around the city. Once again, an extraordinary assortment of Lenny's friends and admirers had been assembled, from James Levine to Plácido Domingo, from Meryl Streep to Steve Martin. It was one of the most heartwarming evenings we have ever had for AmFAR, true to the spirit of the man who inspired it. For me, it was certainly the apogee of my life.
Most importantly, "Serenade" raised the first million dollars for AmFAR's community - based clinical trials program, which went on to create a nationwide network of 45 cooperating HIV/AIDS clinical research centers. One year later, the government joined in funding community-based clinical research. People with AIDS all over the United States are now greatly benefiting from the know - how, the experience and the research of hundreds of participating physicians. Hard work and new hope have begun to dry many tears of despair, thanks to the man who helped get it all started, Leonard Bernstein.
Dr. Mathilde Krim was Founding Co-Chair and Chairman of the Board of American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR).
companion threads conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/2914/ronstadt-presents-award-leonard-bernstein
ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/5495/linda-leonard-bernstein
Linda (and Michael Tilson Thomas) presented Bernstein with the Grammy Legend (lifetimes achievement) Award
896 views•May 29, 2014
DOREEN ONUSKI
72 subscribers
Linda RONSTADT presenting lifetime achievement award to Leonard Bernstein ...she couldn't get away from him fast enough!! LOL. LOL |
|
|
|
Post by the Scribe on Nov 22, 2023 20:52:36 GMT
Celebrating 100 Years of Eileen Farrell
leonardbernstein.com/news/blog/105/celebrating-100-years-of-eileen-farrell
Posted February 12, 2020
On her 100th birthday, we celebrate American dramatic soprano Eileen Farrell (1920–2002).
Farrell was known for her concert work with orchestras and for singing popular music on radio, in recordings, and in live performances.
She appeared a number of times as soloist with the New York Philharmonic during Leonard Bernstein's tenure as music director, including Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in 1960 and various Wagner works on an east coast tour in 1961. For the 1962 inaugural concert of Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall) at Lincoln Center, Farrell sang in the Gloria from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, as well as Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music. During the 1967-68 season, in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the NY Philharmonic, Farrell sang an excerpt from Weber's Oberon in a recreation of the orchestra's first program, as well as the role of Sieglinde in a program that included Act I of Wagner's Die Walküre. Although she never sang them in the opera house, she gave extraordinary performances as the lead roles in excerpted concert performances of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in 1969 and Götterdämmerung in 1970 with the NY Philharmonic and Bernstein.
Bernstein and Farrell recorded several excerpts from Wagner's operas and the Wesendonck Lieder with the NY Philharmonic, many of which can be heard on Sony Classical's newly released 16-CD collection of Farrell's entire American Columbia recordings from 1946 to 1963.
Farrell also appeared in a special benefit concert for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFar) that Bernstein put on at New York City's Public Theater in 1986. This concert, whose performers included Linda Ronstadt, Marilyn Horne, Isaac Stern, and Bernadette Peters, among others, raised nearly $300,000 for AIDS research and care.
Video: Leonard Bernstein, piano, and Eileen Farrell perform at "A Classic Evening for AIDS Research," December 7, 1986.
Leonard Bernstein at 100: Exhibition at The Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center
|
|
