Aileen Mehle and Elton John |
Elton John, Cornelia Guest and
David Furnish |
Debbie Bancroft, Mario
Buatta,
Bettina Zilkha |
Julia Wallace |
Mary Rodgers |
Elton John, Evelyn Lauder,
Candice Bergen |
JUILLIARD
Elton
John
Rocks
Radio
City
To Raise Money For Juilliard
Story by
Roger Webster
Photos
by Billy Farrell/PMc
 LTON
JOHN bedazzled a sell-out audience at
Radio
City
Music Hall
with a program of 23
songs, backed up by an orchestra of 99 student musicians, under
the direction of James Newton Howard, and 62 singers from
the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
The finale was a rendition of Elton’s first big hit, Your
Song, which he did as a duet with Juilliard alumna Renée
Fleming. They raised the roof and brought down the house.
The concert was followed by a benefit dinner for 550 in the
Rainbow Room. The dinner, along with 100% of the proceeds from the
concert generously donated by Elton, raised $1.3 million for
scholarships to be split evenly between the
Juilliard
School
and the Royal Academy of
Music, where Elton studied from age 11.
Cornelia Guest and Elton’s partner David Furnish
chaired the gala. Honorary chairmen included Cynthia and Dan
Lufkin, Lord Jacob Rothschild, and Evelyn and Leonard
Lauder.
Other
chairs were Juilliard president Joseph Polisi and his wife
Elizabeth Marlowe, philanthropist Julia Wallace, our
President’s niece Lauren Bush, Joan and Michael
Steinberg, MAC Cosmetics president John Demsey, Eva
Dillon, Michèle Gerber Klein, Maria Olivia,
Jim and Alice Weil Judelson, Dayssi Olarte de
Kanavos, Paige Boller and Dr. Howard Sobel, Bettina
Zilkha, Kimberly and Steven Rockefeller, Annie
Churchill, Gillian and Lydia Hearst-Shaw, Amanda
Hearst, and Jill and Robert Zarin.
Among the guests having a blast were Barbara Walters with
Joe Armstrong, Prince of Chintz Mario Buatta, Candice
Bergen, Tony Award winning costume designer William Ivey
Long, Sharon Bush with her daughter Ashley,
Frank Langella, Mary Rodgers, Lorraine Bracco,
Deborah Norville and Karl Wellner, interior
designers Robert Tartarini and Richard Mishaan, New
York deputy mayor Patty Harris, Ron Delsener, Ralph
Destino, Jr. with Dylan Lauren and fashion designer Gustavo
Arango.
Also Audrey and Martin Gruss, Coco Kopelman, Gerald
Tsai, William Goodman IV and Christine Schott, Lisa
McCarthy, Christine and Stephen Schwarzman, Fred and
Carole Guest, Allan Beeber, Amy Hoadley, Ted
Chapin, David Greenough, Juilliard's Christopher
Mossey and Tony Newman, plus
society columnists Aileen Mehle, David Patrick Columbia,
Debbie Bancroft, Steven Stolman, Tom Gates,
Jeffrey Hirsch, Morgan Goldberg, Joanna Molloy, Jeff Slonim
and R, Couri Hay.
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