“Music is a literature of the heart, it commences where speech ends”…. Alphonse de Lamartine
On behalf of Career Bridges, “helping young opera singers launch their careers”, Barbara Bender and husband David invite you to attend The Twentieth Annual Gala, Concert & Dinner on Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at the Metropolitan Club (1 East 60th Street, NYC). The evening will begin at 6:30 PM with a cocktail reception and silent auction. At 7:30 dinner will be served and guests will be treated to a fabulous concert. Tickets for the event can be purchased on-line at https://careerbridges.org.
Extraordinarily gifted young operatic singers complete their formal training, but are not fully prepared for a career due to lack of post graduate training due to lack of funds for further study. Adding to this, limited performance opportunities and mentoring stymies many of these extremely gifted singers in the pursuit of their careers. Based on the recommendations of a 25 member panel of experts, the organization provides grants for voice, coaching, diction, language and stage presence. The grants also include career guidance, performance opportunities, and assistance in career promotion.
In a conversation with Ms. Barbara Bender we learned about this year’s fabulous Gala, but also about her illustrious career as a singer herself. The effect of music is powerful and penetrating. Music brings the soul alive. Barbara’s stories were humorous and enlightening. It’s a “small thing, but in a distant world, every moment of harmony counts. And if we share the music, we might just shout in anger a little less and sing in unity a little more.”….Jon Meacham
I would first like to ask you why you chose The Metropolitan Club?
It is very interesting. We are honoring Jason Kwintner, Director of Special Events at the Metropolitan Club this year. We’ve never honored someone who coordinated our Gala before. He has been with us, overseeing our events, for 20 years first at the Essex House and then he left there. He called us one day and said Barbara I just want to tell you I’m moving to the Metropolitan Club and he’s been there ever since. He is just a darling. He manages the events there. He asked if I would like to do my event there the following year and I said of course. It is an extraordinary venue and with Jason at the helm it could not be a better match.
What can people expect at the gala?
They’re going to come in and be wined and dined. They are going to have an amazing dinner. They’ll be able to chat and listen to the piano during cocktail hour when a very dear friend will play piano. When the award winners come down, in a very grandiose way, we have trumpets and all of that. Then the award winners will be performing. They have won the gift from Career Bridges and they will be singing that night. We will be giving out a little something for the people that have been with us since we began Career Bridges. It is wonderful for the young people ages 21 to 30 to be able to audition. They are put before a group or panel of experts and then they get ideas of what they need to do to realize a career. We’ve had about 200 or more award winners. One thing that was very interesting was last year this singer came in and we had three men one after the other but when this one lovely man sang, well you have never seen judges get up and scream and applaud so excitedly before. He is now making his debut at the Met. The man who received a grant last year will be making his debut – his wonderful entrance into the world of Opera. It is exciting. A few weeks ago, we got calls in one day from Ghana then Australia, Italy and Canada. They were all calling about wanting to come for Career Bridges.
I think Career Bridges should be a global phenomenon. I think it is.
We thought this from visiting Colorado. My mother was wonderful person and a concert pianist. And my grandmother was brilliant. There was so much going on about my grandmother who sang at the 1912 World’s Fair. We were there to honor my grandmother. My grandfather was a conductor and a composer. I made my debut in Pueblo when I was five and a half. I was a violinist. My grandmother surrounded us with music from waking up in the morning till going to bed at night. It was constant music. I had four uncles who were all musicians. I made my debut at age 13, playing the meditation from Tai Eve on my violin, with the Pueblo Symphony Orchestra. We got this idea to start Career Bridges because so many singers need this help. It is not just financial. They need to have someone they can talk to. People from the Met, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe, everywhere. And it’s wonderful. And they get to learn. If they are with the wrong teacher, we tell them what they need. It has always been very exciting to help them. We have the panel of experts. There are about 20 there.
Do they come to the gala too?
Oh sure. They wouldn’t miss it. What I love is that I can bring someone like Julius Rudel, back then it was at the Essex House. I had made my singing debut with him at City Opera and now we were honoring him. It was full circle. It’s so wonderful. These people that are conductors, they are so wonderful. I was literally thrown on stage and I didn’t know anything.
I wanted to tell you a funny story. When you are in Show Business anything can happen. I was seen by somebody at City Opera. They called the next day and I had no experience except what I did when I was growing up. They called and told me I was going to California to perform with Groucho Marx. It was really incredible. When I got there, I didn’t know where the stage was at the MGM and there was this man following me, and I thought oh, wait a minute, don’t I know you? It was Groucho Marx! His daughter was a performer and she asked me if I had a car. I said yes, I’m staying with my aunt here and Groucho asked me to take her home. I said I would be glad to, but I don’t know California that well. So, we made it to her home and became good friends.
Another great story while I was in Portland, they said I got a call from Joan Crawford, who wanted me to come to Los Angeles for a party. I said she doesn’t know me. And, they asked if I could make it and I said I guess so, I would like to. I bought a beautiful dress and I walked in and you had to take your shoes off and all the rugs were just like they tell you, white. Things like that happen when you are performing all the time.
I was doing Papermill Playhouse and I got a call asking if I could do Sound of Music. I said yes. I asked who my leading man was and they said it’s a surprise. He will be flying in for a 10:00 rehearsal in a week. Guess who it was? Jean Pierre Aumont. He told me I have so much energy. And I said it’s rehearsal that’s what we do in rehearsal. He said I am never up this early. And I told him he would get used to it.
Do you remember Andy Devine? He was wonderful. We did Showboat together. At Jones Beach we made our entrance on a boat. A huge boat. He told me if he had a daughter, I would want it to be you. He was one of the nicest guys.
Dick Rodgers gave me my career. He told me I was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. He told me I could really sing and that he wanted me to do The Sound of Music to replace Florence Henderson in Chicago. I said but I want to be on Broadway. He told me I would be, but that I was going to learn what it is to run a company. I was there 6 months and I learned. As soon as I got there, I thought this is not right since these people need a rehearsal. The guy that was backstage told me I couldn’t do that and I said that’s not what Dick Rodgers told me. So sure enough I called Dick and told him we needed a rehearsal. And, he told me to do whatever I want.
It’s so beautiful what you are doing for these artists to get them started.
That is the whole point. You have to take dance lessons, sometimes four a day. You have to know what you’re doing and be totally dedicated. No nonsense. Eight shows a week is a lot. I will never forget when I was at La Fontaine theater on Broadway and they said you were now taking over what was Mary Martin’s rehearsal room. I walked in there and I said I don’t believe this. You have to be ready for it though because it’s a job. It is a lot of hard work.
One more story, I decided that I wanted to do something when I was in Pasadena. And it was for Candide and who should be there but Leonard Bernstein. I almost fainted. He told me to come with him and he’s going to play the piano and go over some of the stuff. He took me up into a balcony and they had a big piano up there and he was coaching me. Do you know Wyatt Earp and Hugh O’Brian? I walked in on the stage on the rehearsal and I said are you Hugh O’Brian? He said yes. I said, well you’re late and we don’t do that in Show Business. He started sending me plants and I couldn’t fit them all in my room backstage. I told him to stop that I can’t have all those plants around me I’ll start sneezing.
Anyway, he was obnoxious but we finally made up sort of. So here I am on the stage and this one point where I was mad at him for something he’d said/done I walked up to him and slapped him. They could hear it way up in the balcony. And he never talked to me anymore.
It sounds like you had the perfect Musical life.
That was just the way it was for me. My father was at Universal Studios in Hollywood when I was born. He was a wonderful cameraman. He came home and my mother was fixing dinner and I was in the bassinet. He came over picked me up, put me down and dropped dead. My mother was only married for a year and a half. They called my grandmother and she said don’t worry bring her home we’ll take care of her. I had all these uncles and boy they took care of me as promised. And, the rest as they say is history.
Many thanks to the many who help make the Career Bridges’ Gala happen including Yvette Wenger, Lorraine Silvetz and Jane Thorngren.
For more information go to https://www.careerbridges.org .