LONGY CELEBRATES THE PACIFICA QUARTET IN NEW YORK

An entourage of supporters and friends of Longy School of Music recently converged on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the Pacifica Quartet was named quartet-in-residence, a prestigious appointment previously held by the Guarneri String Quartet for 43 years. Today the spotlight is on Pacifica, now in their final year of a four-year residency at Longy as Visiting Artists in Chamber Music. Before the concert, the Longy group dined at the Met’s Petrie Court Café, then walked past glorious art galleries to the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium to enjoy Pacifica’s concert of works by Haydn, Bartók and Schubert. Afterwards, everyone gathered at the Hotel Wales to meet the Pacifica Quartet, for whom fundraising efforts are now underway to extend their residency at Longy.

(a) The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was the magnificent backdrop for the Longy event. (b) Longy Trustee Patsy Ostrander, Pacifica violist Masumi Per Rostad and Trustee Harriet Griesinger. (c) Longy President Karen Zorn and Norton Batkin, Vice President and Dean of Graduate Studies at Bard College. (d) Violist Masumi Per Rostad with Trustee Charlotte Hall. (e) Long-time Longy supporter David Griesinger with Dr. Anthony Jahn, otolaryngologist and a physician for the Metropolitan Opera. (f) Front, from left: Trustee Joan Griscom and Pacifica violinist Simin Ganatra; back row: Pacifica cellist Brandon Vamos, Harriet Griesinger, violist Masumi Per Rostad and Karen Zorn. (g) The Acela “Pacifica” Express transported nearly 20 people from the Boston area to the event. (h) Sculpture in the gallery adjacent to the Met’s Petrie Court Café, where the Longy group dined before the concert.

(i) From left: Tom Caruthers, designer at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, with his wife, Jennifer Newsom, designer at Deborah Berke Architects; Karen Zorn; Deborah Berke, principal of Deborah Berke & Partners Architects, Norton Batkin, and Deborah Berke’s husband, Dr. Peter McCann, chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York. (j) Sylvia Hammer and her husband, Longy Trustee Roy Hammer. (k) Longy Board of Visitors members Roseanne Kumins, Mary Jane Kornacki and her husband, Jack Silversin. (l) Metropolitan sculpture gallery. (m) From left: Joan Griscom, Patsy Ostrander, Karen Zorn, Charlotte Hall, Nortin Batkin, Harriet Griesinger, Steven Tremble, Director of Philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy, Boston, Jennifer Jahn, Vice President of Music Programs for the Fontainebleau Schools, and her husband Dr. Anthony Jahn. (n) Pacifica violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson with Karen Zorn. (o) Longy’s Director of Communications Christine Paul with William Townsend Perks of the Townsend Society, Oyster Bay, NY, and Laura Phair, strategic account manager at biopharmaceutical firm EMD Serono. (p) Angela Radulescu, of Romania and a junior studying neurosciences at Columbia University; Ben Cotton, junior in history and political science at Columbia and son of Catherine Cotton, Longy’s Manager of Concert Services and Special Events. (q) Longy’s Director of Annual Fund Noah Hulbert with wife, Kate, and their daughter, Sophia, the dimpled darling of Longy’s entourage to the Big Apple.

Longy Photos by Steve Gilbert