Dallas Symphony Orchestra announces 2022 DSO Gala Leadership, Donna and Herb Weitzman – Gala Chairs, 2022 DSO Gala Guest Artists, Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano) and Thomas Hampson (baritone) and Gala Concert Sponsor, Capital One
Dallas, Texas (February 23, 2022) – The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) announced today the leadership for the 2022 DSO Gala. Donna and Herb Weitzman will chair the event on Saturday, October 1, 2022. The chairs will lead the planning and fundraising for the DSO’s signature benefit event.
Community service and philanthropy are bedrock principles for Donna and Herb Weitzman. Donna, former mayor of Colleyville, Texas, and Herb, a real estate legend and founder and Executive Chairman of Weitzman, are involved in numerous community causes.
Donna received the 2004 George W. Bush Presidential National Volunteer Award and the 2013 Regional Volunteer Service award for Volunteer Center of North Texas. She currently serves as a member of the Executive Board of the Dallas Symphony Association and is the president of the Board of Directors of KidneyTexas, Inc.
Herb Weitzman serves on the MD Anderson Cancer Center Board of Visitors as a Senior Member and is also a member of the Advisory Board of Dallas Summer Musicals. Recently, Herb was announced as the recipient of the Gifford K. Johnson Community Leadership Award from the University of Texas at Dallas, which recognizes non-graduates of UT Dallas who have taken up the University’s cause with exceptional support, dedication, passion and enthusiasm for its vision of becoming a leading national research university. Herb has a long history of civic and professional involvement, serving on over a dozen boards, including the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies board. In 2018, UT Dallas announced the establishment of the Herbert D. Weitzman Institute for Real Estate following a legacy gift made by both Herb and Donna.
“The Weitzmans have shown a great deal of dedication to the community and the DSO,” said Kim Noltemy, Dallas Symphony Orchestra Ross Perot President & CEO. “We are grateful that they will lead this year’s event, which is sure to be a great success.”
Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and baritone Thomas Hampson will take center stage with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra during an elegant evening of food, fun and festivities at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The pair will perform selections from Franz Lehár’s beloved operetta The Merry Widow. Music Director Fabio Luisi (Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Directorship) will lead the DSO for this festive event.
Crowned “America’s favorite mezzo” by Gramophone, Susan Graham will be making her DSO debut with this Gala performance. Thomas Hampson, often referred to as an “Ambassador for American Song,” will also be making his DSO debut.
The DSO Gala will feature a cocktail reception, elegant seated dinner and Gala Concert performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Susan Graham and Thomas Hampson, followed by the Gala After-Party featuring savories, desserts and dancing to live DJ-spun music. This black-tie event on October 1, 2022, is one of the Dallas Symphony’s largest annual fundraisers, benefitting the DSO’s music and education programs, which touch the lives of more than 243,000 North Texas residents annually, including more than 30,000 children. The DSO’s education programs include a Southern Dallas Residency as part of its comprehensive outreach programs. The residency provides instruments and instruction to children in area schools and in after-school programs; features DSO musicians performing concerts on weekends and evenings in the community; and fosters collaborations with artists in the community.
Capital One will return this year as Gala Concert Sponsor. “We are committed to investing in the communities where we live and work, and the arts are a huge component,” said Sanjiv Yajnik, President, Financial Services at Capital One. “From the established Young Strings program to the rapidly growing Kim Noltemy Young Musicians program, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s initiatives are fostering a love for music in our communities. They are nurturing leaders of tomorrow with the skills, tools and resources they need for a vibrant future.”
Full-evening Gala tickets start at $1,250 each and include the pre-concert reception, dinner, premium concert hall seating and the After-Party. For information about full Gala tickets, table purchases and Gala sponsorships, call Tab Boyles at 214.871.4045 or email at Gala@DalSym.com.
Concert and After-Party tickets, which do not include the pre-concert reception or dinner, will be available as a DSO subscription add-on in June. Single tickets will go on sale in June.
ABOUT DONNA AND HERB WEITZMAN
Donna Weitzman is an entrepreneur, dating expert, author and podcaster, and has served as a mayor and leader in local city government and continues to serve the greater Dallas community in a variety of civic and cultural roles as well as had a successful real estate career.
Herbert D. Weitzman is the Executive Chairman of Weitzman, a full-service commercial real estate brokerage firm that now ranks as one of the largest retail-focused real estate services firms based in Texas.
Donna and Herb continuously give back to the Dallas community through various organizations.
ABOUT THE DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Music Director Fabio Luisi, presents world-class orchestral music at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, one of the world’s top-rated concert halls. As the largest performing arts organization in the Southwest, the DSO is committed to inspiring the broadest possible audience with distinctive classical programs, inventive pops concerts and innovative multi-media presentations. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the orchestra reaches more than 243,000 adults and children annually through performances, educational programs and community outreach initiatives. During the pandemic, the Dallas Symphony was one of a few major U.S. orchestras to present socially distanced concerts with live audiences throughout the 2020/21 Season. Furthermore, the orchestra has offered more than 200 outdoor chamber concerts in neighborhoods throughout the Metroplex since the summer.
The DSO continued online music lessons to more than 300 students as part of its Young Strings and Young Musicians programs and increased its online dissemination of concerts through a newly designed website and on social media. The DSO has a tradition dating back to 1900 and is a cornerstone of the unique, 118-acre Arts District in Downtown Dallas that is home to multiple performing arts venues, museums and parks – the largest district of its kind in the nation. The DSO is supported, in part, by funds from the Office of Arts & Culture, City of Dallas.
ABOUT SUSAN GRAHAM
Susan Graham – hailed as “an artist to treasure” by The New York Times – rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. Among her numerous honors are a GRAMMY® Award for her collection of Ives songs, Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award. As one of the foremost exponents of French vocal music, she has been recognized with the French government’s “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.”
This season, Graham makes her role debut as Herodias in Salome at Houston Grand Opera and reprises her portrayal of Mrs. De Rocher in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s company premiere of Dead Man Walking. In concert, she sings La mort de Cléopâtre and excerpts from Les Troyens with the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Berlin Musikfest, revisits her signature interpretation of Les nuits d’été with the Vancouver Symphony and headlines the Jacksonville Symphony 2020 Gala. She completes the season with a “Beyond the Aria” concert in Chicago’s Millennium Park and recitals with pianist Malcolm Martineau in Berkeley, Fort Worth and at New York’s Lincoln Center.
Graham’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of more virtuosic parts, and she went on to triumph as Octavian in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in his Ariadne auf Naxos. She sang the leading ladies in the Metropolitan Opera’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her musical theater debut in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In concert, she makes regular appearances with the world’s foremost orchestras, often in French repertoire, while her distinguished discography comprises a wealth of opera, orchestral, and solo recordings. Gramophone magazine has dubbed her “America’s favorite mezzo.”
ABOUT THOMAS HAMPSON
Thomas Hampson, America’s foremost baritone, has received international honors for his artistry and cultural leadership. Long recognized as one of the most innovative musicians of our time, his operatic repertoire comprises over 80 roles and his discography includes more than 170 albums, with multiple nominations and winners of the GRAMMY® Award, Edison Award and the Grand Prix du Disque.
Highlights of Thomas Hampson’s 2021/2022 season include his return to the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino as Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. He creates the role of Jan Vermeer in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring at Opernhaus Zürich. Hampson also returns to the Teatro Real de Madrid to star in the title role of Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian.
Notable engagements on the concert stage include a concert with the Oslo Philharmonic and cellist Sol Gabetta, led by Klaus Mäkelä, and performances with the Orchester Wiener Akademie, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, Orchestre national de Lyon and Prague Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Hampson joins bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni for their “No Tenors Allowed” program in Moscow with the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, and he will bring his acclaimed “Song of America” program to the Turku Music Festival next summer. His recital appearances include organ recitals with Martin Haselböck at Dresdner Philharmonie, with Christian Schmitt at Tonhalle Zürich and a recital with Wolfram Rieger at Alte Kircheund Künstlerhaus Boswil. In addition, he will present a program of Mahler songs with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Karina Canellakis and perform a concert at the International Bruckner Festival Linz 2021.
Last season, Hampson made his highly anticipated role debut as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, under the baton of Zubin Mehta. His concert appearances included opening the Oslo Philharmonic’s season in August 2020 with their new Chief Conductor, Klaus Mäkelä, and his “Song of America: A Celebration of Black Music” project co-curated with Dr. Louise Toppin, presented as part of the Hamburg International Music Festival at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. Hampson returned to the Verbier Festival for exciting performances with violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Wolfram Rieger, and he hosted several masterclasses with students from the Verbier Festival Academy. He also returned to the Pierre Boulez Saal as Artistic Curator for the “Schubert-Woche” at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin, and the Opernwerkstatt Waiblingen, with Dan Ettinger and Melanie Diener.
Thomas Hampson is an honorary professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and an honorary member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. In addition to several Honorary Doctorates, he is the Kammersänger of the Wiener Staatsoper and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France. In 2017 he received the Hugo Wolf Medal, together with Wolfram Rieger. Hampson is the co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Lied Academy Heidelberg, in 2003, he founded the Hampsong Foundation, through which he uses the art of song to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding. His international master class schedule is a continuing online resource of Medici.tv, the Manhattan School of Music, and The Hampsong Foundation livestream channel.