On Saturday night, the Washington Performing Arts Society held court at the Kennedy Center for its fall benefit. The evening comprised dinner, a two-hour performance by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Camerata Salzburg, and dessert.
“We have two major events a year, and this is the one that really ties into a performance,” said the society's director of special events, Liz Early. “It’s about W.P.A.S. and our mission of presenting performances all over the city.”
The benefit began in the Kennedy Center’s second-floor atrium with a reception, complete with performers dressed in Baroque-era garb and a string trio comprised of a society staffer and friends. The 250-person dinner also took a cue from the evening’s performance. “We’re really focusing on the music that they’re presenting tonight. I want our guests to feel like they were transported to European royalty in the 18th century,” said Early.
Early worked with the Kennedy Center on the dining space, adding flourishes to the carpeting with projected gobo lights and gold sashes along the ceiling. The tabletops featured Baroque-style embroidered blue and gold silk cloths from Party Rental and four-foot-tall arrangements of white roses and blue hydrangeas on gilded columns from Jack H. Lucky Floral Design.
After dinner, which was catered by Restaurant Associates and consisted of field greens with chanterelle mushrooms and lamb osso buco with carrot purée, guests headed down to Mutter’s show in the Kennedy Center concert hall. The artist and her accompanying musicians mingled afterward in the atrium for dessert with guests, who went home with Hermès fragrances and Mutter CDs as a reminder of the evening’s performance.
