FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Katlyn Morahan
Morahan Arts and Media
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com
(646) 378-9386

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THE NEW YORK POPS ANNOUNCES
GUEST ARTISTS AND ADDITIONAL HONOREES FOR
39TH BIRTHDAY GALA,
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER:
THE SONGS OF KRISTEN AND BOBBY LOPEZ
ON APRIL 25 AT CARNEGIE HALL

Guest Artists Include Original Cast Members from
Frozen, Coco, Avenue Q, and The Book of Mormon,
Plus Others To Be Announced

Gala Pays Tribute to Music Honorees Kristen and Bobby Lopez,
Corporate Honorees Nicola Heryet and John Osborn,
Legacy Honoree June Freemanzon, and PopsEd Honoree Ron Schaefer

February 28, 2022, New York, NY — The New York Pops, led by Music Director and Conductor Steven Reineke, today announces an initial line-up of guest artists for its 39th Birthday Gala, For the First Time In Forever: The Songs of Kristen and Bobby Lopez, honoring the Academy and Grammy Award winning songwriting duo Kristen and Bobby Lopez on Monday, April 25, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, presented by The New York Pops. 

Guest artists from across the Broadway, film and television community will perform selections from Kristen and Bobby Lopez’s wide-ranging catalog including selections from Frozen, Frozen 2, Coco, The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, and more. Participating artists include: Jennifer Barnhart (original Mrs. T and Bad Idea Bar in Avenue Q), Jaime Camil (Film, Television and Broadway star; the voice of Papá Rivera in Pixar’s Coco), Stephanie D’Abruzzo (Tony Award nominee for originating the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut in Avenue Q), Santino Fontana (Tony Award winner and Hans in Frozen), Jordan Gelber (original Brian in Avenue Q), Ann Harada (original Christmas Eve in Avenue Q), Nikki M. James (Tony Award winner for the role of Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon), Mykal Kilgore (first national tour of The Book of Mormon), Rick Lyon (original Nicky and Trekkie Monster in Avenue Q), Patti Murin (original Anna in Disney’s Frozen on Broadway), and John Tartaglia (Tony Award nominee for originating the roles of Princeton and Rod in Avenue Q). Additional guest artists to be announced; line-up subject to change.

Together, Kristen and Bobby Lopez have written music and lyrics for films including Disney’s Frozen (for which they won an Academy Award and Grammy Award) and Pixar’s Coco (for which they won a second Academy Award), as well as songs for the Marvel series WandaVision (Emmy Award win). Other major projects include the Broadway adaptation of Frozen and the motion picture Frozen 2. Their works with additional collaborators include the hit Broadway musicals Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, and In Transit.

In addition to its Music Honorees Kristen and Bobby Lopez, the Gala evening will pay tribute to Corporate Honorees Nicola Heryet (Principal, Avison Young) and John Osborn (Chief Executive Officer of OMD USA); Legacy Honoree June Freemanzon, founding board member of The New York Pops; and and PopsEd Honoree Ron Schaefer (Founder and Director of French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts).

“I’m so excited to celebrate new friends and old friends at our upcoming gala,” said Steven Reineke, Music Director and Conductor. “As members of our board, Nicola Heryet and June Freemanzon have been instrumental to the orchestra’s continued success. Ron Schaefer created French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, a prestigious performing arts camp which has generously granted scholarships for our ?Kids on Stage? students to attend. John Osborn is a leading advertising professional with a long history in New York City, including his work on the uplifting “New York Miracle” campaign after September 11.”

Proceeds from the Gala support The New York Pops orchestra and the organization’s PopsEd music education programs that reach throughout all five boroughs of New York City. The concert is followed by a black-tie optional dinner and dance at the Mandarin Oriental New York.

The New York Pops’ 2021-22 Carnegie Hall season also includes One Night Only: An Evening with Norm Lewis on Friday, March 4, 2022 at 8:00pm and Get Happy: That Nelson Riddle Sound on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 8:00pm featuring Tony DeSare and Capathia Jenkins.

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Concert Information
THE NEW YORK POPS 39TH BIRTHDAY GALA
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER: THE SONGS OF KRISTEN AND BOBBY LOPEZ
Monday, April 25, 2022 at 7:00pm
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
Steven Reineke, Music Director and Conductor
Kristen & Bobby Lopez, Music Honorees
Nicola M. Heryet, Corporate Honoree
John Osborn, Corporate Honoree
June Freemanzon, Legacy Honoree
Ron Schaefer, PopsEd Honoree
Jennifer Barnhart, Jaime Camil, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Santino Fontana, Jordan Gelber, Ann Harada, Nikki M. James, Mykal Kilgore, Rick Lyon, Patti Murin, and John Tartaglia, Guest Artists 

Kids on Stage Students, Brian Worsdale, Director

Gala Co-Chairs
Kristen Bell, Actor
Tim Castelli, Chief Revenue Officer, iHeartMedia
Trey Gargano, Senior Vice President of Sales, Fox News Media
Stacey Larson, Chief Investment Officer, OMD
Sang Lee, Co-Founder & CEO, Thine
Mitti Liebersohn, President & Managing Director of NYC Operations, Avison Young
Christopher Mansfield, Executive Vice President, CBRE
Marc Platt, Producer
Tom Schumacher, President & Producer, Disney Theatrical Productions
William T. Sullivan, Executive Director, Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation
Kimberly Till, Former CEO & President, Harris Interactive
Nadine Wong, Executive Director & Global Sports & Entertainment Director, Morgan Stanley PWM

American Airlines is the Official Airline of The New York Pops.

Ticket Information
Dinner Dance and Parquet Premium concert-only tickets include a tax-deductible donation and can be purchased at newyorkpops.org/gala2022 or by calling 212-765-7677. Tickets to the full gala evening range from $1,500 (concert and dinner seating for one) to $50,000 (premier concert seating and VIP dinner table for eight) and Parquet Premium concert-only tickets range from $200 to $300. 

All other concert-only tickets range from $39 to $165 and are available via carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge 212-247-7800, or the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th and Seventh.

Please note: To support a safe reopening for in-person events and in accordance with the advice of medical and public health experts, everyone entering Carnegie Hall this season will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 with a vaccine approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of February 14, 2022, everyone coming to Carnegie Hall will be required to show proof of full vaccination as well as proof that they are fully up-to-date on CDC-recommended boosters, based on their eligibility. In addition, everyone on Carnegie Hall’s premises will be required to wear a properly fitting mask over the nose and mouth at all times. 

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About the Music Honorees
Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez are the Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy winning, married songwriting team behind the Disney animated films, Frozen and Frozen 2. Together they also wrote the Oscar winning song “Remember Me” from Pixar’s Coco and songs for Marvel’s WandaVision (Emmy Award win for “Agatha All Along”). They wrote songs for the Obama’s series We the People and adapted Frozen for the Broadway stage. Robert co-conceived and co-wrote the hit musicals Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon, both earning him Tony Awards. Kristen’s show In Transit made history as the first all a cappella musical to run on Broadway, after an award-winning Off-Broadway run. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez have written for television, film and stage, including Finding Nemo: The Musical; songs for “The Wonder Pets” (two Emmy Award wins) and the Winnie the Pooh animated film. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez both serve on the Dramatist Guild Council. Graduates of Yale University and Williams College, respectively, they now reside in Brooklyn with their two daughters.

About the Corporate Honorees
Nicola Heryet is a Principal in Avison Young’s New York City office. With more than 35 years of experience and long-standing industry relationships, Nicola represents both owners and occupiers of office space in the leasing and strategic planning of commercial real estate assets throughout the New York City market. Her career is filled with long-term, brand name clients who repeatedly seek her expertise; Nicola has closed more than 35 million square feet of transactions throughout her career.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Nicola served as Senior Managing Director at Cushman & Wakefield. Before that, she was a Principal at Cassidy Turley for more than six years. Nicola was with Cassidy Turley’s predecessor, Colliers ABR for 13 years, most recently as a Principal.

In 2021, Nicola was named to Crain’s “Notable in Real Estate” list and in 2019, Nicola was recognized by GlobeSt in the Women of Influence Class of 2019 for Broker of the Year. In 2018, she was honored as a Notable Woman in Real Estate by Crain’s New York Business. Nicola was a recipient of the Real Estate Board of New York’s Robert T. Lawrence Memorial Award for the 740,000-square-foot relocation of the United Federation of Teachers headquarters in 2002. She was honored as the Women Real Estate Leaders of the 21st Century in 2000. In 1998, she was the Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association New York’s Young Real Estate Woman of the Year.

Nicola graduated from the University of Westminster in London. She currently sits on the Real Estate Board of New York’s Commercial Board of Directors, where she is also a member of the Admissions Committee, and serves on the Arbitration Committee and the Plaza Committee. She was the Senior Real Estate Woman of the year for the Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association and board member of CoreNet New York and Women Executives in Real Estate.

Nicola is a former Co-Chair and current board member of Nontraditional Employment for Women, a former President and current board member of James Lenox House Association, and a board member of the New York Pops.

John Osborn is Chief Executive Officer of OMD USA. In his four plus years at OMD, John has integrated together the agency’s brand, data & analytics and performance media services under one umbrella, built new data operations and commerce practices and helped OMD achieve back-to-back recognition as Global Agency of the Year in 2019 and 2020 by AdWeek. He has also overseen a series of new business wins, including The Home Depot, LegalZoom, Boehringer Ingelheim, U.S. ARMY, SNAP and the NFL. John is also a key member of the Worldwide EXCO Committee.

John joined OMD in 2017 after 25 years with BBDO, where he served as President and CEO of the New York Agency for 13 years. Under John’s leadership, BBDO New York more than doubled revenues, expanded its client base to include categories like BtoB, retail, healthcare and more, and diversified its workforce. He also led the agency’s transformation into data, marketing science and communications planning. The result: BBDO New York was named Agency of the Year more than 15 times by various media outlets.

Over the years, John has demonstrated that he is an energetic, positive and passionate leader with a proven ability to build strong client relationships and deliver results. John’s notable accomplishments over the years also include his involvement with the “New York Miracle” campaign, which helped lift spirits of New Yorkers in the wake of the September 11 attacks. John has been equally active outside business, lending his talents to other important causes. He is Chairman of the Board of the American Red Cross for Greater New York and President of the Board of The Global Dignity Foundation.

He has served as Chairman of the Board of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the “unifying voice for advertising.” More recently, John was elected to the Board of The Advertising Council and the Woodstock Foundation in Woodstock, Vermont.

In recognition of his accomplishments, John was a recipient of a 2012 AdColor Award celebrating diversity champions in advertising, media, marketing and public relations. In 2003, he was inducted into the AAF Hall of Achievement, which honors people 40 years of age or under for their contributions to business. He has also been named to the Crain’s New York Business list of “40 under 40” as well as BtoB magazine’s “Who’s Who in BtoB.” In 2006, John was named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. In 2016, the Police Athletic League recognized John as its Superstar of the Year, and the AAF presented him with the Barton A. Cummings Gold Medal Award – its highest honor for service to the Federation and its membership. 

John earned his BA at Dartmouth, for which he continues to serve as a member of its Alumni Association and Friends of Dartmouth Hockey Program. He is married to Lesley and is the proud father of a 17-year-old daughter (Caroline) and a 16-year-old son (John Jr.).

About the Legacy Honoree
June Freemanzon is a retired aircraft spare parts executive who grew up with a strong desire for adventure. She soon realized that to achieve her aspiration to see the world and learn about other cultures, she would have to work for an airline. Earning a business degree at Fisher College, Boston, MA, in 1956, she visited a friend in Manhattan who encouraged her to move to New York City. Soon after, she landed a job with Alitalia Airlines launching a 25-year career with them. Her position reflected the unique individual she is. June was one of very few women purchasing aircraft parts to maintain a fleet of airplanes.

Good fortune came along for June when she met her soulmate, Arthur de Domenico, President of Associated Products of America, Inc. who was selling aircraft spare parts. Unfortunately, Arthur passed away suddenly and at a young age. June became the company's President and carried on Arthur's legacy for nine years.

Desiring a diversion from her business responsibilities, June learned that Skitch Henderson, of Tonight Show fame, was organizing The New York Pops. Coming from Boston, this intrigued June and she wrote to him. When they inevitably met, they bonded over a shared love for American popular music and were both travel and aviation aficionados (Skitch was himself a pilot). He and his wife, Ruth Henderson, recognized June's talents and recruited her as a Founding Board Member of The New York Pops in 1983.

June has been on the Board ever since and with the passing of Skitch and Ruth, “she became the orchestra's matriarch,” according to Music Director and Conductor, Steven Reineke. She is a member of The National Art Club and The Wings Club Foundation. June can be found most nights enjoying theater, ballet, jazz and, of course, The New York Pops.

About the PopsEd Honoree
Ronald Schaefer, or “Ron,” is the founder and director of The French Woods Festival of The Performing Arts in upstate New York, one of the largest performing arts camps in the United States.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Ron is a proud graduate of Midwood High School, where he counted Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano as a friend and classmate. He then went on to Brooklyn College where he received his degree in Music Education. His contributions to public education in New York City included a stint as assistant director and accompanist for the Brooklyn Boro Wide Chorus, Director of The District 19 Concert Band, and his eight years as Director of Bands at Shallow Intermediate High School, where he taught New York Pops principal tuba and French Woods alum Marcus Rojas.

In 1969, Ron established The Heldeberg Music Festival, which would later become French Woods. In the fifty years since Ron began this journey, many campers have passed the wooden gates and pine trees that line French Woods’ home during the summer. What started as a simple music and theater program blossomed into a mecca for individual choice programming. Music, Theater, Dance, Circus, Visual Arts, Horseback Riding, Sports, Magic, and Extreme Sports are all part of the comprehensive program.

Ron is the heart and soul of the French Woods program. He continues to be involved at every level from supervising new projects and initiatives to conducting and directing musicals. Every program offering has been spearheaded by Ron’s desire to have French Woods give young people as much access to activities as it can. The scope and reach of French Woods is enormous. This is due to the love and dedication Ron has for creating a magical place where young people can be themselves, grow, and contribute to a larger community.

Ron is blessed to have a wonderful family who continue to be a part of the fabric of the French Woods community. His children are all involved in the camp—Beth Schaefer is a camp director and partner, Karen or “Cat” Schaefer is very devoted to the equestrian program and also teaches classes in theater, and Scott Schaefer is the IT director of the camp and helps out in all aspects of the program—and Ron’s lovely wife Barbara works with the camp’s executive chef to ensure campers have great and healthy options at the dining hall.

About The New York Pops
The New York Pops is the largest independent pops orchestra in the United States and the only professional symphonic orchestra in New York City specializing in popular music. Led by Music Director and Conductor Steven Reineke, the orchestra performs an annual subscription series at Carnegie Hall, and is among the venue’s most presented ensembles. Now in its 39th season, The New York Pops’ annual birthday gala is celebrated each spring, raising funds for the orchestra and its education programs. The New York Pops performs annually in Queens, NY at Forest Hills Stadium, a 14,000-seat historic concert venue. 

The New York Pops celebrates the diversity of popular music’s evolving songbook. Every concert is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, with influences ranging from Broadway melodies to film scores, jazz, rock, pop, and everything in between. Under Reineke’s dynamic leadership, The New York Pops continues to re-imagine orchestral pops music.

Through its PopsEd music education programs, The New York Pops fulfills its dedication to lifelong learning by collaborating with public schools, community organizations, and senior centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City. PopsEd allows thousands of New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds to participate in fully customizable music programs that blend traditional education with pure fun. 

The New York Pops is committed to serving all members of the community. Through its Kids in the Balcony and Kids in the Stadium programs, thousands of children and their parents have had an opportunity to see The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and Forest Hills Stadium free of charge. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, The New York Pops adapted its PopsEd programs to provide remote learning opportunities to students, and orchestra musicians were featured in new digital performances.

The New York Pops was founded by Ruth and Skitch Henderson in 1983 with a mission to create greater public awareness and appreciation of America’s rich musical heritage through presentation of concerts and education programs of the highest quality. The New York Pops is a non-profit organization supported solely through the generosity of individual donations, institutional grants, corporate sponsorships, and concert income.

Follow The New York Pops on Facebook (facebook.com/thenewyorkpops), Instagram (@thenewyorkpops), and Twitter (@thenewyorkpops).

About Steven Reineke
Steven Reineke has established himself as one of North America's leading conductors of popular music and is in his second decade as Music Director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he is Principal Pops Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Principal Pops Conductor of the Houston and Toronto Symphony Orchestras.

Reineke is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra and his extensive North American conducting appearances include Dallas, Detroit and the Ravinia Music Festival.

On stage, Reineke has created programs and collaborated with a range of leading artists from the worlds of hip hop, R&B, Broadway, television, and rock including Maxwell, Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Cynthia Erivo, Sutton Foster, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady, Peter Frampton, and Ben Folds, among others. In 2017, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” featured Reineke leading the National Symphony Orchestra performing live music excerpts between news segments — a first in the show’s 45-year history. In 2018, Reineke led the National Symphony Orchestra with hip hop legend Nas performing his seminal album "Illmatic" on PBS's Great Performances.

As the creator of more than one hundred orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Mr. Reineke’s work has been performed worldwide, and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently in North America, including performances by the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare was used to commemorate the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swan’s Island Sojourn were debuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands worldwide.

A native of Ohio, Mr. Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio (2020 Alumnus Distinguished Achievement Medal), where he earned bachelor of music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently resides in New York City with his husband Eric Gabbard.

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