Denk, Denim, and Diamonds

It was an evening of many facets at the Music Academy of the West when it hosted a Denk, Denim and Diamonds gala which attracted more than 100 guests and raised around $50,000 for the Miraflores oceanside campus.

Drinks on the terrace outside Lehmann Hall kicked off the sunset soirée before supporters filed into the hall for dinner of flat iron steak, oven roasted salmon and butternut squash risotto with desserts of citrus cheesecake bites, vanilla bean panna cotta, and chocolate hazelnut bread pudding and cream.

Jeremy Denk – one of America’s foremost pianists who is on the teaching artist roster at the academy and winner of both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize – performed Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major.”

Fans turning out include Chris Fossek and Leila Drake, Frank McGinity, Christopher Toomey, Thomasine Richards, John and Ellen Pillsbury, Richard and Marilyn Mazess, Warren Staley, Maurice Singer, and Susan Lichtenstein.