Two Fridays ago (January 26th) was the occasion of the Marilyn Horne Foundation’s 13th Annual Recital -- the culminating event of its annual festival, The Song Continues… a co-production of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute and the Foundation.

The Festival featured master classes by three incomparable divas, Barbara Cook, Evelyn Lear and Marilyn Horne, duo recitals featuring Foundation artists, and the Annual Recital, which spotlighted the talents of Foundation artists and, as Special Guest Artist, the fantastic Metropolitan Opera tenor Marcello Giordani. 

The festive concert, musically themed “Gypsy in My Soul,” also featured the world premiere of 2 songs written by Gabriela Lena Frank and commissioned by the Foundation.
 
Immediately following the Annual Recital, the Marilyn Horne Foundation held its Annual Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction at the Jumeirah Essex House’s Petit Salon and Grand Ballroom. Proceeds benefited the Foundation.
 
Co-Chairs for the Dinner were: Mrs. Stephen Kellen and Mr. and Mrs. Lester S. Morse, Jr.
 
At Jumeirah’s Petit Salon after the recital, 178 guests perused the Silent Auction and enjoyed cocktails and tempting canapés prepared by the Jumeirah’s new chef, Christian Gradnitzer. Serenading the guests were Velesko Gellev’s gypsy violin and pianist Eric Huebner.  Once the guests took their seats for dinner in the Grand Ballroom, Marilyn Horne and the Foundation’s Chairman George P. Sape welcomed everyone.

On Thursday last,  Co-Presidents Stephanie Jourdan-Pedron and Aunt Fati Rosenberg celebrated the grand opening of their new home/design store, MIYO (Make it Your Own), in Mid-Town Miami and to raise money for the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation(JBRF).

Miami’s social set joined hostesses Dana Shear, Lizzy Dascal, Natalia Miyar, Sam Robin, Megan Lykes and Tiffany Markofsky for an evening of cocktails and shopping in a showroom filled with authentic finds from Asia and France.

Other special guests included JBRF Board of Directors member and co-author of “The Bipolar Child,” Janice Papolos, interior designer Alison Spear, handbag designer Alison Antrobus, Karla Dascal of Karla’s Conceptual Event Experiences, Jackie Chariff and Lolo Sudarsky.

In addition the percentage of sales donated to the organization, the partners at MIYO also donated $100,000 to the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation in effort to begin its Miami chapter.

Following in her mother’s entrepreneurial prowess, Fati Rosenberg’s daughter, Lara, sold seashells painted by her and her classmates for $10 a piece in support of JBRF. She raised a total of $700 in a single evening. Good work, Lara!

The Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation is the first charitable organization solely dedicated to the support of research for the study of early-onset bipolar disorder. The board is made up of dedicated parents, treating professionals and world class clinical investigators and basic science researchers.

JBRF has organized a consortium of collaborating research groups and individual investigators from a number of medical schools and treatment centers including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and SUNY-Syracuse.

MIYO is located in Miami’s rapidly developing Mid-Town at 47 NE 36th Street, Miami 33137. For more information call 305-576-4170 or visit www.miyohome.com.