Paul Simon Surprises, Misty Copeland Honored at Harvest Moon Gala

Denyce Graves, Paul Simon PHOTOS by PMC / Getty Images

On September 28, the Denyce Graves Foundation took over Guastavino's for its annual Harvest Moon Gala, a black-tie night chaired by Barbara Tober and Ann Gottlieb and emceed by Deborah Roberts. The honorees were a trio that tells you where this foundation lives, at the exact intersection of music, history and reach: Misty Copeland, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Ann Ziff. And then, because galas are graded on their surprises, Paul Simon performed. Nobody had announced him. Nobody needed to.

Copeland received the inaugural Mary Cardwell Dawson Humanitarian Award, named for the pioneering Black opera impresario who founded the National Negro Opera Company, and presented by director Kenny Leon. Accepting, she kept returning to Raven Wilkinson, the first Black woman to dance with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and to the simple wish behind the award: "wanting the next generation to know these women sooner than we did." ABT principal Calvin Royal III, there to celebrate her, put the Copeland effect plainly in his remarks: she did not just help more people see themselves in ballet, she helped ballet see its audience more fully.

Nézet-Séguin took the Game Changer Award, telling the room, "Music for me is about expressing love," and pointing the honor back at the institutions championing composers like Margaret Bonds, Marian Anderson and Florence Price alongside today's voices. Ann Ziff received the Living Legend Award, with Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb paying tribute and cheerfully calling her "the antidote to me." The music, fittingly, kept outrunning the speeches: performances from Susan Graham, John Holiday and Joshua Bell, and a finale of Bernstein's Make Our Garden Grow, with Brandon Jovanovich and the Foundation's young artists filling the stage.

The room matched the program: Adrienne Arsht, Jason Robert Brown, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Michele Oka Doner, Susan Gutfreund, Ailyn Perez and author Marianne Williamson, who also spoke. Even the gift bags were composed, with custom nail polishes named Rose in Cavalier and Rhapsody in Lilac in honor of Nézet-Séguin. It is all in service of the Foundation's actual work, supporting emerging singers and writing overlooked musical figures back into the historical record. Under the harvest moon, that mission throws a very good party.

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