Wednesday, May 24th, 2017

6:30 PM DOOR OPENS

7:00 - 8:30 PM  AWARD CEREMONY, CONCERT AND COCKTAIL RECEPTION

Tenri Cultural Insitute

43A WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011

Suggested Donation Level:

General Admission $45

Student and Senior $25

RSVP REQUIRED. SEATS ARE LIMITED. CLICK HERE TO RSVP

7-7:20 pm Opening performance by Noah Shukla, the Seven-year-old pianist AND Award Ceremony for Sarah McDowell, Senior in Kent Place High School, NJ

7:20-8:05 Concert

8:10-8:45 Cocktail Reception

Guest Artists:

EIKO KANO, VIOLINIST

Ms.Kano is an active violinist serves as an assistant concertmaster for the Albany Symphony as well as freelancing with New York Philharmonic. Eiko’s early success includes participation in master class by Isaac Stern in which resulted her to be invited again by him the following year. She also made a highly acclaimed appearance in TV drama directed by Jin Tatsumura both in acting and violin performance. She received both Bachelor and Master degree in music from Manhattan School of Music. She also has won numerous awards including the top prize in the 4th International Music Competition of Tokyo and Forval Scholarship which enabled her to play on the Stradivarius violin for two years. Eiko currently enjoys active career both in New York and Japan. 

STEPHEN OLSEN, PIANIST

Called "Superb" by the Boston Globe, pianist Stephen Olsen commands a wide range of repertoire and maintains an active teaching career as piano faculty at Greenwich House Music School in New York City. Solo performance engagements include recitals in his native city Seattle, a concerto performance in Kuala Lumpur, and performances of contemporary music in Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium. Olsen holds a Master’s degree and Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from Stony Brook University.

TADESH INAGAKI, NARRATOR

Tadesh is an actor, singer, and entrepreneur with over 12 years of acting experience in professional and University settings in Boston, Princeton, NJ, and New York City. He graduated from Princeton University in 2014 with a degree in Economics and a certificate in Theater, and received the Outstanding Creative Thesis Award for his creation and performance of Inside/Out, a new documentary play about the systemic issues and human challenges of incarceration and reentry in the US. Tadesh co-owns and operates Jianbing Company, a Brooklyn-based food business.

CATERING BY MISAKO IZAWA - SHIKINYC

As a former fashion design editor in Japan, I came to NYC to start my own business for my lifelong passion. There I met my partner who shared my vision and shiki nyc was born in April 2016.  We called our company "shiki" which in Japanese translates to four seasons, emphasizing the seasonality and freshness of our food.  I'm thrilled to bring my background in Japanese cuisine (both my mother and grandmother were cooking teachers in Japan) to show you my own distinct and unique style of Japanese cooking.  My goal is to inspire food lovers by showing how visually striking and uniquely tasting my own style of healthy and creative Japanese cooking can be.  -Misako

MSTERIO (formerly HappyDoll) works to connect children by showing that giving is as great as receiving. 

Children design handcrafted gifts that are destined to travel to other children around the world. At each destination, the receiving children are encouraged to play with the gifts and enjoy them for a short time before the gifts travel on to their next destination. 

Everyone along the way can track the gifts and see where they are and where they have been. To date, our gifts have been given to over 12,000 children in Albania, Canada, China, Colombia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Myanmar, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, Uganda, Vietnam, and all over the United States.

Ultimately, after the gifts have traveled to many locations, they are given to a child in need somewhere in the world. MSTERIO provides all the materials, cleaning, sanitizing, shipping and tracking of the gifts.

The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization was founded in January 2011 by Nozomi Terao.