Richard Gere’s concert “We recognize their struggle as our fight for the right to self-determination, freedom, and a more just and safer world based on wisdom and love,” Geer said.
Actor Richard Gere hosted a charity concert for Ukraine at Carnegie Hall. Raising $360,000 for Direct Relief, a humanitarian organization that provides medical care.
Sopranos Angel Blue, Richard Gere’s concert mezzo-sopranos Dennis Graves and Isabel Leonard, pianist Evgeni Kissin, violinists Midori and Yitzhak Pearlman, Tony Award winner Adrien Warren, singer Michael Feinstein, jazz singer-songwriter Sevan McCallini in an event themed around prayer and dreams.
“We recognize their struggle as our fight for the right to self-determination. Freedom, and a more just and safer world based on wisdom and love,” Geer said. He quoted Leonard Bernstein, a conductor who performed more than 400 shows at Carnegie, saying: “Lenny said, ‘This will be our answer to violence. Let’s make music more intense, beautiful, and faithful than ever.” Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska spoke on video. And Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergei Kislitsya said live.
Graves choked when he was told by his husband, Dr. Robert Montgomery, who left for Ukraine to help with the relief effort also returned a day early.
The audience was Jamala, a Ukrainian singer who “1944” won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1944. The Ukrainian Dumka Choir in New York sang the Ukrainian national anthem and played the song for the final number “Somewhere” in Bernstein’s West Side Story. Many cast members join in at the rare moment when Kissin and Midori sing in the show.
“All of us at Carnegie Hall feel that we must do our best to gather. As many people as possible to support the Ukrainian people,” said Clive Gillinson, CEO of Carnegie Hall.