parties

Out to Lunch!

Springtime means it’s luncheon season in H-Town! The annual Hats in the Park event, chaired by Francine Ballard and Greggory Burk, was once again a glam slam, raising $400K for the Hermann Park Conservancy. ... The Christus Foundation for Healthcare welcomed Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, to speak at its spring lunch, which raised nearly a quarter-million dollars. ... And more than 200 supporters of the Children’s Museum gathered at the River Oaks Country Club for its Friends and Families lunch. Guests enjoyed fig-and-pecan-glazed chicken as keynote speaker Jennifer Arnold, best known as half of The Little Couple on TLC, gave a motivational message — and Sprinkles’ cupcakes to-go were a sweet parting gift.

‘Friends’ by Wilson Parish; ‘Hats’ by Jenny Antill Clifton

Dominique Isenhower and Jason Dyer at ‘Christus’

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art

New Artist-Run Gallery Rises and Hits the Ground Running with Diverse Group Show

Sarah Sudhoff (photo by Katy Anderson)

SINCE THE 1970s, Houston’s cultural scene has only grown richer and more diverse thanks to the DIY spirit of its visual artists. As an alternative to the city’s major museums (which are awesome) and commercial galleries (again, awesome), they show their work and the work of their peers in ad-hoc, cooperative, artist-run spaces — spaces that range from the traditional white cube interiors, to private bungalows, to repurposed shipping containers.

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Art + Entertainment

Houston’s Grammy-Nominated Music Org Gets ‘Bach’ to Basics with Concert and Book Release

Matthew Dirst (photo by Jacob Power)

FOR FANS OF early music — an often scholarly lot who aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves — bad-boy Baroque-era painter Caravaggio certainly nailed something in his dramatic 1595 painting, “The Musicians.” (Simon Schama talks about this in his TV series The Power of Art.) One look at his masterpiece, and you feel as if you’ve stumbled upon and surprised a roomful of dewy-eyed musicians, their youthful faces swollen with melancholy, with the lutist looking like he’s about ready to burst into tears before he’s even tuned his instrument. So no, you certainly don’t need a Ph.D. to enjoy and be moved by the music of Handel, G.P. Telemann, or J.S. Bach, but a little bit of scholarship never hurt anyone. Knowing the history of this music may even deepen your appreciation of it.

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