This summer was especially at high pitch with record attendance at top charity events. Guild Hall’s annual gala featured famous artist Julian Schnabel with a major exhibit, which included new incarnations of his iconic broken plate canvases. The Author’s Night benefit for East Hampton Library brought over 100 authors, many with bestsellers, to sign books under a huge white tent. And Longhouse Reserve outdid itself with two special events: a concert by gifted virtuoso pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner and a special performance of high wire artist Philippe Petit–whose 1974 aerial walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centers created a sensation. Petit took to the highwire again over the gardens of Longhouse in a jazz duet to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that Twin Towers aerial walk. Here’s a detailed round-up of eight exciting events.
Highwire Walk at Longhouse Reserve
In a performance that took your breath away, highwire artist Philippe Petit, who 50 years ago walked illegally on a highwire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, walked on the 16-foot-high highwire in the gardens of the Longhouse Reserve in East Hampton on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The anniversary performance was a jazz duet with Petit on the highwire and Anat Cohen playing the clarinet interpreting his movements. The event was a benefit for the Longhouse Reserve’s educational programs and a section of the audience who selected the $500 tickets enjoyed a cocktail party and meet-and-greet with Petit after the show.
Now in his 70s, Petit walked the wire with the agility and precision of a man half his age. Dressed in an ornate jacket he climbed up the ladder to the perch platform, lifted the heavy balancing pole, and started the show walking barefoot with slow precise catlike foot placement. The audience clung to the edge of their seats while the clarinetist interpreted his graceful aerial dance movements, his exquisite mastery of the long pole.
Petit’s career has included many historic highwire performances, most notably the walk between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris (1971) and the Sydney Harbor Bridge (1973). The 2008 Man on Wire documentary about Petit’s highwire walk between the Twin Towers won the 2009 Academy Award for the best documentary.
The sculpture garden Longhouse Reserve event started off with an exciting concert by Young Concert Artists, Karen Lindquist on harp and Anthony Trionfo on flute. Trionfo was a first prize winner of the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, and Lindquist performs as harp soloist with major orchestras throughout the Unites States and Europe. Their selections were varied and hypnotic: Adagio and Presto from Sonata for Flute and Harp by Jean-Michel Damase; Arabian Love Song by Max Steiner; Sonata in C Major by Luigi Boccherini; and Tambourin by Francois-Joseph Gossec. The sounds of harp and flute resonated through the silent garden and the concert evoked a sense of a royal court garden in the distant past.
Julian Schnabel’s Splashy Exhibition at Guild Hall Gala
This year’s Guild Hall Gala was especially glittering with celebrity. Renowned artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel was honored with an exhibit of “Selected Works from Home,” painting and sculptures from his personal collection created over the 45 years of his career, artworks that he chose to keep. His breakout exhibition at Mary Boone Gallery in SoHo 1979 debuted his broken plate artworks, where destroyed ceramic plates stuck onto huge canvases as if thrown. From 2016 he returned to that theme and in Selected Works there were several recent broken plate canvases with portraits painted onto the fractured ceramics: one of his wife Louise Kugelberg, and two with portraits of painters Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh (upon whom Schnabel based his 2018 film, At Eternity’s Gate). A fascinating surreal work, The Sky of Illimitableness, showed a mythological beast on a mountain precipice contemplating the future.
Having undergone a two-year, $30 million splendid renovation, Guild Hall was ready to return to its place at the center of East End artistic and social life. The cocktail party was held at the outdoor courtyard, all festooned with exquisite floral arrangements and wicker lanterns, courtesy of Palm Beach’s Colony Hotel. Then the 350 guests moved to the newly renovated theater and enjoyed a performance by multimedia artist, Laurie Anderson, a friend and neighbor of Schnabel in East Hampton, and finally a dinner under a tent on the Guild Hall grounds. The annual fundraiser took in $950,000 to support Guild Hall, its performing arts, museum and educational programs.
Authors Night Benefit with 100 Authors Under the White Tent
On this 20th annual Authors Night fundraising benefit, the premier literary event of the Hamptons, 100 authors, sitting at long tables with stacks of their books, converse with the guests and sign dedications. People carry armfuls of books to a storing station and place them in tote bags with their names. Then when leaving, the guests secure their totes and pay for all their books at once at the exit.
Held under a grand tent on the Herrick Park field at 67 Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village, the event features many inspiring and diverse topics: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s To Infinity and Beyond, Joy-Anne Reid’s Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America, Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People, and Brian Stelter’s Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of FOX News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy (the latter two which I purchased and had signed).
The offerings include fiction, nonfiction, comedy, poetry, and some books that defy category like an oversized illustrated poetic book about the wine world, A Year in the Vineyard by Sophie Menin and Bob Chaplin. This is a masterwork on the cycle of the grape vine, honoring the seasonal rhythms and rituals of winemaking. It takes the reader on a journey to Chateau Musar’s snowy vineyards on the slopes of Mount Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley in winter; to Chateau Lafon-Rochet in Saint-Estephe in Bordeaux in spring; to Olivier Leflaive in the Cote de Beaune in Burgundy in summer; and to Burgenland, Austria to Eduard and Stephanie Tscheppe’s Gut Oggau vineyards in fall. Illustrated with 153 pages of exquisite photographs and paintings, the book takes you to dozens of wine estates throughout the wine world and tells the story in captivating, poetic prose of the vignerons who nurture their vineyards with extreme care, adhering to the cycles of nature.
One of the most emotional sights of Authors Night was Robert Caro, 88, sitting at the entrance to the big tent with an enormous pile of his 1,286-page oeuvre, The Power Broker, signing copies on its 50th anniversary of publication. According to The New York Times, The Power Broker—“the portrait of megalomaniacal city planner Robert Moses who reshaped New York City with his bridges and expressways, often destroying communities that stood in his way”—has sold more than 40,000 copies this year and some cultural critics have declared 2024 the year of The Power Broker.
The event raised $450,000 to support the East Hampton Library.
The Parrish Art Museum Midsummer Dance and Dinner
Friday night’s Midsummer Dance party is the hottest ticket for the young Hamptons’ charitable set. The outdoor party takes place on the Herzog & de Meuron-designed 6,000 square foot covered terrace. Huge ball chandeliers made of ivy plants and strings of tiny lights hung from the high beams under the terrace’s eaves. The terrace’s interior wall was covered in thick green plants.
Elegant twin DJs, Angel + Dren, dressed in white, known for their sensuous eclectic music got the crowd going during the first hour. Then Anna of the North—Anna Totterud, an Oslo-based Norwegian singer/songwriter—took the stage and sang tracks from her albums—Lovers, Dream Girl, Believe, and Crazy Life—while Parsons Dance troupe dancers, Zoe Anderson and Joe Cyransky, performed. Like every year, revelers paraded their artistic fashions and danced till midnight.
The décor was designed by Ovando, an events company headed by Mexican born designer Sandra de Ovando, who is known for her use of a profusion of flowers and greenery. Tequila cocktails was the drink of the night as well as wine donated by nearby Wölffer Estate Vineyard; Joey Wölffer is on the Parrish Board of Trustees.
The benefit second night, Saturday night’s Midsummer Dinner, is meant for grown-ups and requires an adult price of $1500 admission. KAWS, Sean Scully, and Shirin Neshat were the honored artists. The museum also celebrated art collectors and dealers, Louis and Susan Meisel, who this year bestowed a tremendous gift to the Parrish: their Sagaponack Sculpture Field, a two acres Sagaponack property with 20 sculptures. The benefit over two nights attracted 650 guests and raised over a million dollars to support the museum and its educational programs.
East Hampton Antiques & Design Show Offers Treasures at Mulford Farm
With fifty antiques and art dealers under white tents encircling the big lawn at Mulford Farm and within the farmstead’s wooden structures, the annual Antiques & Design, held at 10 James Lane in East Hampton village, is the finest antiques and designer accessories show on the East End. The Friday night preview party drew a determined crowd of those anxious to secure some of the treasures before the opening day. Rain was on and off on Friday but cleared in time for the evening’s cocktail party, which benefits the Hamptons Historical Society.
Modern and vintage jewelry is always a big draw at the show. Drucker Antiques brought splendid silver pieces. Antique Reflections Jewelers showcased vintage 18K gold pieces from the 1970’s-1990’s. One-of-a-kind finds abound like Greenwald Antiques’ 1970’s French Hollywood Regency Style palm tree lamp or Fenestella’s red checkered fabric armchair with a curvy silhouette, sourced in Florence.
Collectors of vintage decorative items for the home and garden thrill to this eclectic display of American and European country decorated furniture, retro glassware, textiles, wrought-iron accessories, rattan furnishings, garden sculptures including sphinxes and mythological figures, and kitsch objects like a 10-foot stick with giant olives. I imagined the olive stick at the entrance to a Miami Martini bar.
The New York Public Library Gala “Library Lunch”
Back in Manhattan, The New York Public Library held its annual fundraiser, the Library Lunch, which is always an inspiring event with an animated discussion with authors moderated by The New Yorker editor David Remnick.
With tables set with stacks of books and gorgeous floral arrangements, the lunch (a generous salad with proteins, breads, chocolate mousse dessert) is already on the table upon arrival. Guests dine and sip wine while listing to a themed presentation, this year “Food for Thought” which brought three authors: Chinese cuisine cook and food writer, Fuchsia Dunlop; Editor in Chief of Bon Appétit and Epicurious Jamila Robinson; and writer and bespoke travel curator, David Prior. The discussion revolved around the central role of food in shaping culture and influencing our daily lives.
The most riveting stories came from Fuchsia Dunlop, who lived China’s Sichuanese capital, Sichuanese, in the 1990’s and was trained as a chef there. It led to multiple books on Chinese cuisine and her bestselling autobiography, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China. Remnick, as always, brought the discussion to a fascinating pitch.
At the end of lunch, guests are encouraged to dismantle the tables centerpiece and treat themselves to as many books as they can carry as well as to the floral arrangements. In the copious goodie bags, there were more books and an objet d’art designed for the event by Asprey: a silver lion bookmark.
Piano concert by Sensational Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner at Longhouse Reserve
The Longhouse Reserve brings in dazzling talent for its special events throughout the summer. The virtuoso pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner performed in the Longhouse sculpture garden in a breathtaking concert. In the silence of the garden, every note reverberated in its purest form.
Sanchez-Werner was a child prodigy and performed regularly with orchestras at age six. Now at 27, he gives international performances in cities throughout the world and has performed at the Kennedy Center and the White House for President Obama and President Biden. With multiple degrees from Juilliard and Yale and the Gilmore Young Artist award for the most promising American pianists of the new generation, his biography is astonishing.
Sanchez-Werner performed Chopin’s Scherzo No.3 in C# Minor, Op. 39; Beethoven’s Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101; and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (100th anniversary). In between selections, Sanchez-Werner spoke about the significance of his choices. In the case of Beethoven, he said that this sonata, dating from 1816, was from the composer’s final period and Beethoven was almost completely deaf then he wrote Sonata No. 28 (his hearing difficulties started at around age 28 in 1798).
Hamptons Art & Hope Gala to benefit Ukraine
Held at a sprawling 7,500 square foot private estate in East Hampton, the Art & Hope benefit was billed as a sensory feast with art, sculpture, and captivating musical performances. It featured a cocktail party with an art exhibition, a silent auction, and an intimate dinner to benefit the children of Ukraine through the organization, BlueCheck Ukraine.
Co-founded by actor and director, Liev Schreiber, and Mriya Gallery located in Tribeca, BlueCheck Ukraine supports the children affected by the war and provides evacuation, urgent assistance, and psychological support.
Inside the vast home were displays of artworks by Ukrainian artists represented by Mriya Gallery. Chupahin Jazz Band played outside during the cocktail party while guests walked along the gardens and viewed the sculptures and paintings placed on easels all around the pool. Later, the beautiful Ukrainian DJ, Anastasia Bondarenko, professionally known as Ana Boo, took over the music during dinner. Held outside on one long table overlooking the pool, the charity dinner (at $750 a person) attracted people who had come to the Hamptons for the Hampton Classic horse show, including a few prominent riders from Wellington.
