It undoubtedly goes without saying that music is influential. Educating children in the arts is essential in stimulating their brains and enriching their lives with lessons that they carry on into adulthood. Giving music the push that it needs, the San Francisco Symphony’s principal fundraiser, the San Francisco Black and White Ball, has been a high society tradition since 1956.
This Saturday, on May 22, music advocates will don their black-tie attire and head to the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza for a night of dinner, dancing, live music, and contribution to benefit the San Francisco Symphony’s acclaimed music education program, Adventures in Music, or AIM. A slew of research over the years (such as these findings from the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess at Harvard Medical School) has linked various aspects of music, from listening to singing, to physical and psychological developments including language and memory. The San Francisco Symphony is setting out to change funding statistics and shape children’s minds with its Adventures in Music program, bringing music into the lives of every San Francisco Unified School District student from grades one to five.
Design and lifestyle expert Robert Fountain, the only event designer in San Francisco history to do the opening night galas for the San Francisco Symphony, Opera, and Ballet in the same season, is producing the 2010 Black and White Ball. He will transform the San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center, within the San Francisco Civic Center into an elegant spectacle. The Patrons’ Dinner will take place in a beautiful tented pavilion at 5 p.m., and the San Francisco Symphony League’s Supper Club will drink and dine in the extravagant Veterans Building Green Room.
The Ball will feature an array of local and national favorites. Tony Bennett and k.d. lang will perform at the grand Davies Symphony Hall and the Symphony’s young professionals group, Symphonix will put on “Bash Beyond the Ball,” with music from Kool & The Gang, Tiempo Libre, Faith Evans, and more, following the concert. McCall Associates will serve sophisticated food fit for royalty, including maki sushi rolls, caviar, and black-and-white chocolate mousse. San Francisco designer Colleen Quen created a gorgeous, custom ball gown for Black and White Ball Chairman Patricia Sprincin.
Making its donation to the cause is Grey Goose, the Black and White Ball’s exclusive spirit sponsor, which is donating more than 1,400 bottles of Grey Goose Vodka and Bacardi USA portfolio products, as well as a featured specialty cocktail to the event. With glamour abound, the San Francisco Symphony’s Black and White Ball holds our youth’s futures in consideration under the night sky, complete with a customary midnight surprise, so rather than leave your heart in San Francisco, leave a difference.
