Thank you for making the 2024 Encore Luncheon a huge success!
The 18th Annual Encore Luncheon was Thursday, April 4, seated on the Denney Theatre stage. Luncheon Chairs Tissy and Rusty Hardin welcomed 300 guests to celebrate 2024 Distinguished Alumna and world-renowned jazz pianist and composer Helen Sung ’89.
Thanks to the generosity of HSPVA Friends supporters, the 2024 Encore Luncheon raised a record-breaking $308,000 for Kinder HSPVA programs. These funds will provide arts supplies, adjunct faculty, specialized equipment and technology, and other essential building blocks of Kinder HSPVA’s nationally acclaimed, tuition-free arts curriculum.
Read more about Encore below, and check out photos from the event.
Upon arrival at Kinder HSPVA, guests were greeted by student performers from After Midnight, Kinder HSPVA’s 2024 All-School Black History Production set during the glamor of 1920s Harlem and the Cotton Club. Kinder HSPVA was the first high school to produce After Midnight. Dressed in showgirl and flapper costumes, the students ushered guests into the atrium, where the student-conducted big band played songs by Duke Ellington, accompanied by swing dancers. As they took in the music, guests roamed a pop-up gallery of original paintings by Visual Arts students.
When the seated program began, guests entered the Denney Theatre and made their way onto the stage, where tables were set for them to enjoy lunch. The program kicked off with a regal fanfare by a 13-piece brass ensemble. HISD Superintendent Mike Miles thanked guests for their longtime support of Kinder HSPVA and HISD, reaffirmed his commitment to high-quality magnet programs, and emphasized his personal appreciation for arts education. Following remarks by Kinder HSPVA Principal Dr. Priscilla Rivas, HSPVA Friends Executive Director Alene Coggin, and Luncheon Chair Rusty Hardin, a piano, violin, and cello trio performed Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music. The student brass ensemble and this trio were highlights from Kinder HSPVA’s recently launched chamber music program. Through a partnership with AFA, Kinder HSPVA boasts the nation’s largest high-school chamber music program and is poised to become the national model for chamber music instruction.
2024 Distinguished Alumna Helen Sung ’89 delivered the keynote address and performance. Helen played several pieces and spoke about how Kinder HSPVA was the launchpad for her successful music career. After thanking guests for contributing to Houston’s premier arts school, Sung invited long-time Kinder HSPVA Jazz Director Warren Sneed on stage to accompany her on saxophone for one final song. Sneed retired at the end of the 2023-2024 school year after 25 years as Director of Jazz Studies at Kinder HSPVA, where he has led what is widely considered to be the nation’s top high-school jazz program.
The luncheon also featured a live auction. Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness created a special prize for Kinder HSPVA: an afternoon with him in Austin, including a personal hair and skincare consultation, a blowout, a gift bag of JVN Hair products, and a champagne brunch. This experience was made possible by Kinder HSPVA’s 2023 Distinguished Alumna, 8-time Emmy Award-winning executive producer Rachelle Mendez, who is well-known for her work on five seasons of Netflix’s Queer Eye. This glam day out went for $6,000.
We look forward to celebrating Kinder HSPVA with you at next year’s Encore Luncheon!
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
Kate and Jim Lykes
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
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+.
