On the evening of Thursday, December 8, a capacity audience of Esperanza supporters, scholars and guests filled the ballroom of the Carnegie Institution of Washington for Esperanza’s Third Annual Benefit Concert featuring Taiwanese-American master cellist Sophie Shao and award-winning Indian-American artist Delna Dastur.

Framed by two large-format charcoal and pastel flowers drawn by Ms. Dastur, Ms. Shao gave a bravura performance of the first, second and fourth suites from the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.  The concert was followed by a champagne reception hosted by WilmerHale LLP in the Carnegie’s marble rotunda that featured the art of Ms. Dastur–vibrant and abstract mixed media pieces that draw “on centuries of Indian culture” and whose “depths suggest the cultural archaeology of a place built from multiple civilizations” (Marc Jenkins, The Washington Post).

We would like to thank everyone who attended the benefit, with special thanks to our reception host WilmerHale LLP and our patrons, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, Veris Consulting, Ms. Jean Han, Mr. Tom Olson, Ms. Susan Vitka and Ms. Natalie Wexler, for making this wonderful evening possible.

Please see below for photos from the event courtesy of Eventos VIP Pass.

Please join us on the evening of Thursday, December 8 in the ballroom of the Carnegie Institution for a private recital by master cellist Sophie Shao.  Hailed as “eloquent” and “powerful” by The New York Times, Ms. Shao has toured the concert halls of the world—from New York to Paris to Moscow to Tokyo—and gained international acclaim for her elegant interpretations of the classical repertoire.  A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant at age nineteen, Ms. Shao is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music and serves on the faculty of Vassar College and the Bard Conservatory of Music.

Ms. Shao will perform selections from the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, J.S. Bach’s lyrical masterpiece rediscovered and popularized by Pablo Casals. Ms. Shao will perform the suites on an 1860 cello made by Honore Derazey and once owned by Mr. Casals himself.

The concert will be followed by a champagne reception in the ballroom of the Carnegie’s marble rotunda.

This will be Esperanza’s third annual winter gala featuring internationally recognized immigrant artists.  (For images from our two previous galas, click here or here.)

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

We’re thrilled to invite you to a fun summer event: we’ve partnered with Macchu Pisco and Lincoln—one of the area’s newest and hottest restaurants (Vermont Ave and L St. NW near McPherson Square)—for a pisco-themed cocktail hour next Monday, August 8th from 5:30 to 8:30. Lincoln’s top-notch barstaff will be mixing up Pisco Sours, Pisco Punch Fizz, and Bianco Fresca to cool you off from the August heat. All of these cocktails will feature Macchu Pisco–a locally-owned spirit whose cocktails won the 2011 Ultimate Cocktail Challenge. Of course, rounding out incredible cocktails and delicious appetizers will be a chance to mix and mingle with your fellow Esperanzanistas–so please bring your friends!

Click here for an invitation–or just come on down. See you Monday!

You’ve heard some of their incredible stories, so we’d like to invite you to meet Esperanza’s 2011 scholars in person! Please join us for Esperanza’s Annual Community Picnic this Saturday, July 30th, at 2-4:30 pm at Picnic Area C-2 in Fort Hunt Park in Alexandria, VA. (8999 Fort Hunt Road, Alexandria, VA 22308.)

Our Community Picnic is a casual, fun opportunity to celebrate another successful year. We’ll have soccer, frisbee, burgers, and veggie-friendly foods, so bring yourself and your guests to mingle, play, and eat. The biggest stars of the event, of course, will be all three classes of our scholars with their friends and families, so please come by to meet these amazing young men and women.
 
If you plan to come, please email rsvp@esperanzafund.org with your name and number of guests by Thursday, July 28th at 5pm.  This is not a fundraiser–just a celebration of all the things you’ve helped us achieve this year, a chance to show off our amazing scholars, and, of course, an opportunity to introduce more people to Esperanza.
 
We look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. Note that we are asking scholars to arrive early at 12:45pm–don’t be confused if you hear about the earlier start time.

We’re thrilled to inform you that the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s Latin American Taskforce Network is honoring Esperanza this Saturday, May 7, 2011, from 6:00pm on at its annual Fiesta fundraiser.  The festivities will take place at the RRUUC (6301 River Road, Bethesda, MD) and will include a silent auction, a dinner of Latin American cuisine and, of course, dancing.  For more information, call LATN member Don Chery at (301) 652-0259… or just come on out!

Tickets are $35 for adults, $15 for youths, and $10 for children.  All are welcome; proceeds from the auction will be distributed between Esperanza and needy students in Santa Marta, El Salvador.

Esperanza’s die-hard 5K and 10K team, Team Esperanza, a.k.a. The Phalanx, will be running its last race of the season on Sunday, March 6, at 8:30 am in the Adams Morgan “Vamos!” 5K. If you’d like to join the team as an individual runner or as a member of The Phalanx, who finish the race spelling out E-S-P-E-R-A-N-Z-A across the finish line (see below), please email Alvaro ASAP! A few photos from our last race, the Rockville 10K, are below.

Yesterday, flamenco guitarist Grigory “Grisha” Goryachev and classical oil prodigy Teresa Oaxaca stunned a sold-out audience of Esperanza’s supporters and guests at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Grigory began an almost all-flamenco program with Con Garbo y Salero – Farruco by Sabicas and closed the evening with an encore of the precious Recuerdos de la Alhambra, or Memories of the Alhambra, by late 19th century composer Francisco Tarrega.

After Grisha’s performance in the ballroom, we moved to the Carnegie’s marble rotunda, where WilmerHale LLP hosted a champagne reception and exhibit of the work of Teresa Oaxaca. Teresa lived up to her reputation as the youngest Old Master you’ll ever meet. At the exhibit, Teresa debuted several large, imposing works in the Tenebrist style, including “Father Time”–a rich portrait of the artist’s grandfather that recalled a Rembrandt self-portrait. (And if you were there, you know I am not exaggerating!) Teresa is 22.

We cannot be more thankful for Grigory and Teresa’s support. You can order Grisha’s latest CD, Homenaje a Sabicas, from Amazon.com. To see more of Teresa’s work, visit the Quincy Library in Arlington where her work is on exhibit until December 30 (details here). To inquire about purchasing her work or a portrait commission, visit Teresa’s website. We also would like to thank our hosts, patrons, and community sponsors, including WilmerHale LLP, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, APABA-DC, HBA-DC, SABA-DC, and Reliable Printing.

The event already received a wonderful write-up from New American Media. Photos are below, courtesy of EventosVIPpass.com.

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!

We just got back from our Second Annual Community Picnic at Fort Hunt Park in Arlington.  It was so great to see our scholars, their families, and our dedicated supporters all in one place.  We had almost all of our 20 scholars in attendance, and the energy and diversity of the group was pretty great.

Special thanks to Mexican Jalapeno for generously sponsoring our event.  Use the checkout code “Esperanza” when you shop there and a portion of proceeds will go directly to support new scholars.