Please join us on the evening of Monday, December 6 in the ballroom of the Carnegie Institution of Washington for a private recital by Grigory Goryachev, a Russian-born prodigy of classical and flamenco guitar.  Debuting at age nine in the concert halls of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Minsk, “Grisha” has risen through the ranks of the New England Conservatory and toured the world—from Reykjavik to Jerusalem to Andalucía—to become one of the youngest and most explosive masters of his instrument. You may have heard music from his second album, Homenaje a Sabicas, in the recent Julia Roberts and Clive Owen film Duplicity.

The concert will be followed by a champagne reception and private art exhibit featuring the stunning oil paintings of twenty-two-year-old Teresa Oaxaca, an American-born and Florentine-trained classical painter in the Tenebrist style.

This will be Esperanza’s second winter benefit featuring an internationally-recognized immigrant artist. (For images from last year’s concert featuring Korean-American concert pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe, click here.) It will be a night to remember—for a critically urgent cause.

For tickets and information on how to sponsor this event, click here.

We are thrilled to announce that the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia has named Esperanza a 2010 recipient of the Hugh A. Johnson, Jr. Memorial Award.  This award is presented annually to an individual and an organization who have exemplified outstanding contributions to the Latino community of Greater Washington in the areas of equality, fairness and social justice; over the years, some of the capital region’s top charitable and philanthropic organizations have received this award. Esperanza will be honored at HBA-DC’s annual Equal Justice Awards Reception on Thursday, November 4 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Update: Next Thursday, October 21, HBA-DC, the South Asian Bar Association of D.C., and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of D.C. will host a joint happy hour with Esperanza at Lupe Cantina (1214A 18th St. NW, just south of Dupont Circle) from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Mark your calendars!