Crescendo

April 4, 2024

Chairs

Tissy and Rusty Hardin

2024 Distinguished Alumna

Helen Sung ’89

Kinder HSPVA’s Denney Theatre
790 Austin Street

11:00 AM  |  Reception and Registration
11:30-1:00 PM  |  Seated Luncheon

Check out the 2024 Encore photos!

Thank You to Our Underwriters!

PRODUCER
The Boblitt Family

DIRECTORS
Janis and Paul Jarosz
Kinder Foundation

CHOREOGRAPHERS
Evelyn and Frank Angelle
Johnny Carrabba
Tissy and Rusty Hardin
H-E-B
Deborah Keyser and James Stafford
Victoria and Alex Lazar

DESIGNERS
Wendy and Shawn Cloonan/Jake Rodriguez
Sally and Philip Edmundson
Jennifer Hardy and Daniel Serrato
Laura and Don Sanders
Kimberly Hickson Spaw and David Spaw

ENSEMBLES
Frances and Tim Arnoult/Kay and Bob MacIntyre/Marsha and Charlie Parker
The Family of Auden and Emerson Chen
DocFest, Inc.
Angie and Grant Dorfman
The Law Office of Catherine Evans
Karen Ostrum George and Larry George
Casey and Ryan Hackney
Simone and Sean Maher/Suzanne and Josh Vanlandingham
Dawn and Kennard McGuire
Ginni and Richard Mithoff
Heather and Chris Powers
Julia Robinson

DUETS
Irma Alaron and J. Alejandro Rauh-Hain
Kathryn and Mark Artlip
Patricia Bonner
Lou and John Black
Minnette and Peter Boesel
CenTrio
Rhetta Detrich and Bill Horwath
M. Kaye and Alex DeWalt
Rachel and Tarek El-Yafi
Jo and Jim Furr
Christi and Keith Guerrini
Mindy and Thomas Harper
Catherine and Matthew Johnson
Carey Jordan and Brian Simmons
Megan and Bradley Lembcke
Kristen and Matthew Loden
Elaine and Peter Loggenberg
Christina and Damien Lyster
Jenny Mohr and Matt Parker
Renae Holman Murti and Prashant Murti
Robbie Pape
Vicki and Herb Pasternak
Josh Pazda
Kathryn Priest
Austin Thomas
John and Cynthia Tobin/Alicia Church
Phoebe and Bobby Tudor
Leslie and Eric Wade

SOLOISTS
Joan Albert and James Ray | Annie Arnoult and Austin Lysy | Kim and Tim Birtcher | Terri and Barry Brown | Kristen Burke | Jessica Shank Coviello and Charles Opsahl | Susie and Sanford Criner | Afsheen and Joshua Davis | Algenita Scott Davis | Donna Lax-Edison and Andrew Edison | Susan Elmore | Cristina Esquivel | Gayle and Bob Eury | Todd Frazier | Andrea and Kenny Freedman | Kelly and Greg Funderburk | Lainie Gordon and David Mincberg | June Hu | Dai Huynh and Scott Bowers | Lynn and Herb Jamison | Mary Martha and Jack Lappe | Rich Levy | Kathryn Lott | Bud Luther | Melanie and Marcus Manning | Mike Miles | Joan and Craig Murrin | Gary Patterson | Mary and Marco Piña | Maria-Martha and Jim Powell | Carla and Robert Stevens | Chiarra and Gray Stratton | Susanne Theis | D. Marie Wagner | Kate and Eric Williams | Meredith and Rob Wise

Host Committee

Irma Alarcon and J. Alejandro Rauh-Hain • Evelyn and Frank Angelle • The Boblitt Family • Minnette and Peter Boesel • Patricia Bonner • Johnny Carrabba • Alice Chen and Lyle Ross • Wendy Montoya Cloonan and Shawn Cloonan • Algenita Scott Davis • Rhetta Detrich and Bill Horwath • M. Kaye and Alex DeWalt • Angie and Grant Dorfman • Donna Lax-Edison and Andrew Edison • Sally and Philip Edmundson • Cristina Esquivel • Catherine and James Evans • Jo and Jim Furr • Karen Ostrum George and Larry George • Casey and Ryan Hackney • Jennifer Hardy and Daniel Serrato • Melinda and Thomas Harper • Janis and Paul Jarosz • Carey Jordan and Brian Simmons • Deborah Keyser and James Stafford • Victoria and Alex Lazar • Megan and Bradley Lembcke • Kate and Jim Lykes • Christina and Damien Lyster • Kay and Bob MacIntyre • Simone and Sean Maher • Dawn and Kennard McGuire • Ginni and Richard Mithoff • Jenny Mohr and Matt Parker • Robbie Pape • Marsha and Charlie Parker • Heather and Chris Powers • Julia Robinson • Laura and Don Sanders • Kimberly Hickson Spaw and David Spaw • Austin Thomas • Suzanne and Josh Vanlandingham • Leslie and Eric Wade • Dr. Priscilla Rivas, Kinder HSPVA Principal

About 2024 Distinguished Alumna Helen Sung ’89

Photo by Joseph Boggess

Helen Sung is an acclaimed jazz pianist, composer, and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. At HSPVA, Helen excelled in the classical piano department. Continuing her classical piano studies at the University of Texas at Austin, a chance meeting with jazz music caused an eventual course change: she went on to become part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music and to win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.

Her most recent album, Quartet+ (Sunnyside Records), garnered a 4.5-star DownBeat review and inclusion in its “Best of 2021 Albums” list as well as a January 2022 JazzTimes cover story. The album infuses multiple genres and features Helen’s jazz quartet performing with the classical strings of the Harlem Quartet. Previous releases Sung With Words (Stricker Street), a collaborative project with renowned poet Dana Gioia, and Anthem For A New Day (Concord Jazz) topped the jazz charts. In addition to her own band, Helen has performed with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band.

Recent activities of note include a west coast tour featuring Quartet+, made possible by a South Arts Jazz Road Grant, and debut shows by her large ensemble project “Big, Band, & Beyond,” at Dizzy’s Club Jazz at Lincoln Center. Fashioned as a protest against anti-Asian violence, Helen’s streaming series “Re-Orientation: Asian American Artists Out Loud” (made possible by a Chamber Music America Digital Residency grant) featured her quartet collaborating with a poet, a Hip Hop artist, and an installation artist in a series of interdisciplinary events showcasing the range and diversity of Asian American artistry. Helen’s 2021 Guggenheim fellowship is being applied toward a multi-movement composition for big band. One of the movements won the 2022 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize.

Helen has served on the jazz faculties of the Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. She is currently visiting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an Associate Professor at Columbia University, where she was also the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring the intersection of jazz and neuroscience. Helen is a Steinway Artist.

To hear about Helen’s music in her own voice, watch this video about the making of Quartet+.