Musical Magic in Montecito

The Music Academy’s 76th anniversary gala, The Magic of Miraflores, paid homage to the distinguished 25-year career of president and CEO Scott Reed, who started his successful relationship as an intern and is now moving on to another trajectory in fundraising when the summer festival concludes in August.

More than 350 guests turned out for the popular sunset soirée on the ten-acre oceanside campus raising around $700,000, which benefits both the full scholarship program – with 137 fellows globally spending their summer in our rarefied enclave – and Sing!, a children’s choir program for first-to-sixth grade students in Santa Barbara County.

The boffo bash, co-chaired by the tony triumvirate of Belle and Lily Hahn, and Mindy Budgor, included classical guitarist Chris Fossek and a star-studded concert with former 2014 student soprano Michelle Bradley, winning the Marilyn Horne song competition and now a regular performer with New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

After a rendition of Chopin’s “Polonaise in A-flat major” with Music Academy 1997 fellow Vassily Primakov on piano in Hahn Hall, Bradley – now accompanied on piano by 2001 alumna Natasha Kislenko – sang works from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Holby’s “In the Wand of the Wind,” Verdi’s “Surta e la Notte” from Ernani, the African American spiritual “Plenty Good Room” and “If You Believe” from the Broadway hit The Wiz.

Bradley then joined the Sing! chorus with Erin McKibben, program director, and pianist Shiqi Xu for “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand.” The concert concluded with the youngsters singing “We Are the World.”

A fulsome video tribute was also paid to Reed, who said: “It has been a special place to spend such a large portion of my career. I am proud of all we have accomplished.”

Among those attending the magical musical moment were chairman Maurice Singer, Robert and Christine Emmons, Thomasine Richards, Anne Towbes, Brian and Patti Herman, Janet Garufis, Robert Weinman, Luke Swetland, Xorin Balbes and Truman Davies, Robert and Val Montgomery, Seymour and Shirley Lehrer, Jonathan Bishop, Peter and Kathy Martin, Jennifer Zacharias, Kerry Methner, Erin Graffy, Christopher Lancashire, Jane Lynch, Mary Dorra, and Jane De Hart.

An evening of decidedly high note…