On Saturday evening, a colorful crowd--writers, artists, composers, academics, and performers of every stripe--gathered at the Hudson Opera House for cocktails and chatter, then scattered in twenty-seven different directions to attend dinner parties in nearby private homes. The event raised funds for the non-profit Hudson Opera House, Inc., which since 1992, has restored the venerable nineteenth-century "opera house" (a euphemism, in its day, for a grand building housing municipal offices and an auditorium), and has created a new role for it in the city's civic life, as well. Each year, HOH hosts upwards of 1,000 programs and events, most of them free.
Belly dancer Donna Barrett, composer Jeffrey Lependorf, and SUNY Albany English Professor Eric Keenaghan
Basilica Industria owner Patrick Doyle and Opera House volunteer Delma Phillips-Siegel; Diamond Opera Theater artistic director Mary Hack and Fairview Wine Store owner Risa Dimm
Tattoo authority Ina Saltz and Steven Beispel; Civil War monument sculptor Ron Tunison and Alice Tunison
Kerri and Kibo Yamashita with dinner-party host Gif Whitbeck, Esq. (center); dinner-party hosts Jeff Loshinsky and John Peterson with financial planner Cheryl Stuart
Mary Frances Faso, architect Kate Johns, and Tom Griffin, Esq.; Dr. Theodore Belfor and Pamela Belfor
Fashion designer Bibhu Mohapatra, David Cruz, and literary agent Fred Morris; Joan Castle, Patricia Jennings, and Paul Ricciardi of the SUNY Albany theatre department
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
