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2022 City Parks Foundation Dinner & Concert Benefit at
SummerStage in Central Park Announced
Honoring Anthony Mason, CBS News Senior Cultural
Correspondent
and NYC GREEN RELIEF & RECOVERY FUND
Featuring special performances by
Sheryl Crow
Nile Rodgers & CHIC
September 29, 2022
New York: City
Parks Foundation (CPF) is pleased to announce their 2022
benefit fundraiser, taking place Thursday, September 29 in
Central Park. Dinner and a concert under the stars will be
held at the flagship SummerStage venue. This year’s event
will honor CBS News Senior Cultural Correspondent Anthony
Mason with the SummerStage Icon award and the NYC
Green Relief & Recovery Fund with the People & Parks
Award. Guests will enjoy special intimate performances by
music icons Sheryl Crow and Nile Rodgers & CHIC with
more special guests to be announced.
City Parks Foundation (CPF),
through its Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage
Festival, is one of the largest presenters of free arts and
cultural programs in New York City parks, and serves 300,000
New Yorkers each year through arts, education, sports and
community building initiatives. Thirty-two years ago, Kramer
vs. Kramer author Avery Corman was concerned about the
state of his local park and began looking for ways to
improve it. Thanks to Avery, and many other dedicated New
Yorkers who took action, today City Parks Foundation is
dedicated to offering diverse programming to encourage
residents to use and care for their local parks and green
spaces, to bring these public spaces to life and make them
accessible for all.
City Parks Foundation is proud to honor Anthony
Mason with its SummerStage Icon Award at this
year’s awards ceremony, for his significant contribution to
arts and culture and for his lifelong devotion to NYC’s
parks. Mason
is one the most experienced and versatile correspondents in
television news. From 2019 to 2021, he was a co-host of "CBS
This Morning" and prior to that, he was a co-host of "CBS
This Morning: Saturday" for seven years. He has interviewed
six U.S. Presidents and numerous senior federal officials,
but Mason is perhaps best known for his interviews with many
of the most prominent musicians of our time, including Bruce
Springsteen, Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Adele, Lady Gaga,
Paul McCartney, Cher, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. He has
also profiled performers Jerry Seinfeld, Jeff Goldblum,
Emily Blunt, Kate Winslet and Scarlett Johansson.
City Parks Foundation is also proud to honor NYC
Green Relief & Recovery Fund with the People and
Parks Award for helping transform New York City with
their extraordinary contribution to the stewardship of NYC’s
parks and open spaces in a time of crisis. With the onset of
the COVID-19 pandemic, New Yorkers came to rely on parks
more than ever before. Overnight, people suddenly needed
more space for exercising, fresh air, socializing, and
mental wellbeing. At the same time that usage increased,
both private and public funding to maintain these spaces
dried up. To address the potentially disastrous situation, a
forward-thinking collective of national, family, corporate
and community foundations launched the NYC Green Relief &
Recovery Fund to respond to the most urgent needs facing
the City’s parks and open spaces, while spurring
policy-makers to address ongoing systemic challenges and
policy concerns. The Fund was launched in response to the
efforts of the nascent Parks and Open Space Partners – NYC
coalition to raise awareness of the financial impacts of the
pandemic on open spaces and the many nonprofit and
grassroots organizations that help keep these public spaces
thriving. The NYC Green Relief & Recovery Fund, administered
by City Parks Foundation, has raised more than $8.4M in
funding to serve organizations and communities most in need.
We honor their remarkable generosity on behalf of NYC’s
thriving parks and open spaces.
“I could not think of a better set of
honorees to recognize at this year’s return of our in-person
benefit. After two years of pandemic restrictions and
challenges, the role that parks play in our lives has never
been more clear. We need our open spaces for our collective
community health. The forward-thinking supporters of the
NYC Green Fund saw that immediate and urgent need and
responded with lightning speed to help ensure that New
Yorkers had access to safe and clean parks,” said Heather
Lubov, Executive Director of City Parks Foundation. “As
a live music venue, we at SummerStage could not think of a
better person to recognize than Anthony Mason, whose deeply
personal interactions bring to life the intimate stories of
some of today’s most important performing artists,
highlighting the brilliance of their craft for all to enjoy
and appreciate.”
Following dinner and the evening’s award
ceremony, the crowd will be treated to special performances
by Sheryl Crow and Nile
Rodgers & CHIC.
Nine-time GRAMMY AWARD recipient Sheryl
Crow is an American music icon. In
2022, her
life and career were the subject of a full-length
documentary film entitled Sheryl, which premiered to
critical acclaim earlier this year at the annual SXSW Film
Festival ahead of its network premiere on SHOWTIME. Her
first nine studio albums have sold 35 million copies
worldwide; seven of them charted in the Top 10 and five were
certified for Multi-Platinum sales. In addition to such No.
1 hits as “All I Wanna Do,” “Soak Up the Sun” and “The First
Cut Is the Deepest,” Crow has lofted 40 singles into the
Billboard Hot 100, Adult Top 40, Adult Contemporary,
Mainstream Top 40 and Hot Country Songs charts, with more
No. 1 Triple A singles than any other female artist. Crow is
known as well for her passionate support of multiple
charities.
Nile Rodgers & CHIC are
truly exceptional. Rodgers is a multiple GRAMMY-winning
composer, producer, arranger and guitarist who’s been
inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the
Songwriters Hall of Fame. As the co-founder of CHIC, Rodgers
pioneered a musical language that generated chart-topping
hits like “Le Freak,” (the biggest selling single in the
history of Atlantic Records) and sparked the advent of
hip-hop with “Good Times”. Nile transcends all styles of
music and has made amongst the most important and successful
albums in the careers of Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna,
Duran Duran, Daft Punk and Beyonce, amongst a legacy that is
responsible for over 500 million record sales.
City Parks Foundation’s 2022 Gala is
co-chaired by Lisa and David Barse, Jenny Lee and Joe
Killian, and Katy and Greg Williamson. Other co-chairs
include Angela Barkan, Bonnie and Steven Beer, Mia and
Fergus Campbell, Chana and Cliff Chenfeld, Debbie and
Richard Fife, Lori and David Moore, Claire Goodman
Pellegrini and Rusty Cloud, Elizabeth Sarnoff and Andy
Cohen, Rebecca and Peter Shapiro, Jean Troubh, and Louisa
and John Troubh.
WHEN:
Thursday, September 29, 2022
6:30 -
8:30pm: Cocktail Reception & Dinner
8:30pm: Awards Ceremony & Concert
WHERE:
SummerStage in Central Park
Rumsey
Playfield, enter at E. 72nd Street and Fifth Ave
(Rain or Shine - Tented Venue)
TICKETS: Tables
and tickets for the evening, including the dinner and
concert, are now available for purchase. For
more information, visit CityParksFoundation.org.
About City Parks Foundation
At City Parks Foundation, we are dedicated to
invigorating and transforming parks into dynamic, vibrant
centers of urban life through sports, arts, community
building and education programs for all New Yorkers. Our
programs -- located in hundreds of parks, recreation centers
and public schools across New York City -- reach thousands
of people each year. Our ethos is simple: thriving parks
mean thriving communities.
About SummerStage
Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage
is one of New York’s most beloved, broadly accessible, free
outdoor performing arts festivals. SummerStage presents free
concerts in parks throughout the five boroughs. With
performances in genres that represent the cultural fabric of
New York City ranging from jazz, hip hop, Latin, global,
indie and contemporary dance, SummerStage fills a vital
niche in New York City’s summer arts festival landscape.
Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, more than six
million people from New York City and around the world have
enjoyed SummerStage. In 2020, Capital One City Parks
Foundation SummerStage Anywhere was launched in response to
the global pandemic, presenting free digital performances,
spanning all genres, available to viewers around the world.
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