Friday, February 22, 2019

SEEN: Colorado Ballet Gala at the Ellie nets $460,000

Because every single seat for each of the 10 performances of “The Wizard of Oz” had been sold, it’s no wonder that people were practically beating down the door to score tickets to the 2019 Colorado Ballet Gala.

The chance to view an excerpt from the spectacular production obviously was a big draw for the fundraiser, as a record-setting 615 tickets were sold and roughly $460,000 was raised for Colorado Ballet’s education programs and the Raydean Acevedo Colorado Ballet Academy Scholarship Fund.

The 2018 gala had 475 guests and a net profit of $300,000.

Natalia Ballinger and Michael Korenblat and Rachel and Yuval Moskovich chaired the Feb. 7 event held at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

Both couples have children enrolled in the academy named for Colorado Ballet lifetime trustee Raydean Acevedo. In addition, Michael Korenblat, director of legal affairs for Suncor Energy, is a member of the Colorado Ballet board of trustees and co-chairs its board governance committee with Adrienne Toon, an associate with the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough law firm.

Rachel and Yuval Moskovich are both members of National Jewish Health’s 5280 A.I.R. Society; Rachel’s dad, David Engleberg, an NJH trustee since 1994, served as its chairman from 2003-2006.

The gala chairs, along with the co-chairs of the Colorado Ballet board, Duke Hartman and Elizabeth Katkin, circulated during the cocktail reception to welcome such longtime supporters as Alyson Graves, president of the Colorado Ballet Auxiliary, and her husband, Chris; Dick and Marla Gentry; Edie Bell; and Susan and Stephen Struna, who were among the evening’s Gold Sponsors.

Food and décor tied in with the gala’s Wizard of Oz theme. Waiters from the Kevin Taylor Restaurant Group offered an array of passed hors d’oeuvres that included skewers of Cowardly Lion satay and Munchkin Land tartlets; the Wicked Witch of the West braised short rib dinner was served at tables that BJ Dyer and his team from Bouquets had decorated in shades of green.

PNC Wealth Management was the presenting sponsor, and executives attending the gala included market director Christina Crow and managing director Sandra Salazar. Brent Backes, finance co-chair of the Colorado Ballet board, and his wife, Melanie, were there on behalf of Platinum Sponsor DCP Midstream.

Doug Tisdale, chairman of the Regional Transportation District board, was the auctioneer for items ranging from a Kevin Taylor-catered dinner for 12 at Cableland to a vacation on Italy’s Amalfi coast.
Angie Malpiede and Shontel Lewis, also members of the RTD board, were among the guests, as were Afshin Safavi, founder and chief scientific officer at BioAgilytix and a member of the Cherry Hills Village city council, and his wife, Atousa, and Denver City Attorney Kristin Bronson with her husband, Jeremy.

Colorado Ballet trustee Denise Sanderson and her husband, Jim, were joined by Gina Lorenzen, a broker associate at Kentwood Real Estate, and her husband, Jim; executive director Malik Robinson and director of administration Rhetta Shead represented Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.

Colorado Ballet’s artistic director, Gil Boggs, and his wife, ballet mistress Sandra Brown, circulated to thank the gala committee — whose members included Jackie Rotole, Allie Coppeak, Jan Hammond, Amber Human, Kris McMullan and Susan Stiff — and such other friends of the company as Dianne Bartlett, Louise Rouse, Linda and Jimmy Yip, Lynn Wong, Julia and Rusty Porterfield, Terri Fisher, Pam Sletten, Arlene Johnson, Lorraine Salazar and Aimee Caplis.

Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, partiwriter@hotmail.com and @joannedavidson on Twitter.

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