Itzhak Perlman, Richard Gere and other luminaries raise $360K for Ukraine in benefit at Carnegie Hall

Itzhak Perlman with Evgeny Kissin at Carnegie Hall (Photo credit: Chris Lee)

Richard Gere helps Carnegie Hall raise money for Ukraine
The Associated Press
May 24, 2022

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Richard Gere hosted a benefit concert for Ukraine at Carnegie Hall that raised $360,000 for Direct Relief, a humanitarian organization providing medical aid.

Soprano Angel Blue, mezzo-sopranos Denyce Graves and Isabel Leonard, pianist Evgeny Kissin, violinists Midori and Itzhak Perlman, Tony Award-winner Adrienne Warren, singer Michael Feinstein, jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, mandolinist Chris Thile and Broadway actress Jessica Vosk were among the performers Monday night during a program whose themes included prayer and dreams.

“We recognize their fight as our fight for the right to self-determination, for freedom, for a more just and more secure world based on wisdom and love,” Gere said from the stage. He quoted Leonard Bernstein, the conductor who led more than 400 performances at Carnegie: “Lenny said: ‘This will be our reply to violence. To make music more intensively, more beautifully, more devoted than ever before.’”

Highlights included Warren’s soaring “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” from Mitch Leigh’s “The Man of La Mancha,” Warren and Vosk performing Carole Bayer Sager’s “Prayer,” Perlman and Kissin performing John Williams’ theme from “Schindler’s List,” and Kissin’s impassioned rendition of Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor.

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