I
am excited to be covering the Red Carpet and attending the The City
Gala! The City Gala features a keynote speaking program and awards
ceremony for humanitarians followed by social atmosphere and party takes
place on Sunday, February 12that The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Red Carpet will begin at 7:00 p.m. This event is going to feature amazing Humanitarian Celebrities, Halle Berry, John Travolta and John Paul DeJoria and Quincy Jones will
receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. More details below. For more
information about City Summit and details of this year’s events, and to
purchase tickets, visit the City Gala site, www.citygala.org
Halle
Berry and John Travolta will keynote Grammy weekend events in Los
Angeles at the annual City Summit event, a set of humanitarian and
community building events, that opens at USC Tower, South Park Center
with its own early morning red carpet event. The City Summit and Gala
are humanitarian events that bring artists, celebrities, business
leaders and anyone interested in philanthropic work together with an eye
towards paying it forward to worthy start-up and lesser-known
charitable organizations.
Berry
was the first celebrity ambassador for the Diabetes Aware campaign, but
is perhaps best known for her work with the Jenesse Center, which helps
families affected by domestic abuse. As someone who witnessed and
experienced domestic abuse herself, as a child, Berry will share her
thoughts on overcoming obstacles in her keynote.
The event will be moderated by author and entrepreneur Greg S. Reid, joined by emcee Jeff Timmons, Grammy-nominated singer and founding member of the pop group 98 Degrees.
Stage and film actor Anthony Mackie will be featured as well, along
with an extensive line up of champion entrepreneurs from Google, Virgin
Atlantic and more.
Sunday’s
post-Grammy City Gala event will take place at the Music Center’s Walt
Disney Music Hall. Actor John Travolta, with two Academy Award
nominations and winner of Golden Globe and Emmy awards, will head the
Gala line-up with a keynote conversation.
“I
am extremely pleased to join this assembly of top businesses and
individuals who are united in their desire to act as champions for
positive change,” said Travolta, who is heavily involved in multiple
philanthropic endeavors through the Jett Travolta Foundation he created
with his wife, Kelly Preston.
Named by Time Magazine as one of the six most influential Jazz artists of the 20th Century, Quincy Jones is
an impresario in the broadest and most creative sense of the word.
Over six-decades Jones’ career has encompassed the roles of composer,
record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor,
instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, television
station owner, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur and
humanitarian. Among the multitude of awards that he has received for
his contributions are an Emmy Award, seven Academy Award nominations,
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Award, 27 Grammy Awards, and is the all-time most nominated
Grammy artist with a total of 79 nominations.
He
is the recipient of the Republic of France’s Commandeur de la Legion d’
Honneur, and in 2001 he was inducted as a “Kennedy Center Honoree,” the
United States’ most prestigious cultural award, for his lifetime
contributions to the culture of the country. He was recognized by the
National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master - the nation’s
highest jazz honor, and in 2010 was bestowed the National Medal of Arts,
our nation’s highest artistic honor. In 2016, Jones received a Tony
Award for Best Revival of a Musical for the Broadway production of “The
Color Purple. The award completed the rare EGOT set for Jones, an
exclusive club of artists who have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and
Tony Award.
Even
more important to the focus of City Gala, however, is his lifetime of
commitment to philanthropy, beginning with civil rights work in the
1960s with Martin Luther King and proceeding through a spectrum of
endeavors including the Quincy Jones Listen Up
Foundation that has built more than 100 homes in South Africa and
provided intensive support in technology, education, culture and music
for South African youth.
Jones
was responsible for what is perhaps the most seminal philanthropic
endeavor in the history of music by spearheading the recording of “We
Are the World,” which featured a large gathering of celebrity musicians
including Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie and Paul Simon and
produced $63 million to address hunger in Ethiopia. He has worked
tirelessly within a spectrum of programs including NAACP, GLAAD, The
Peace Games, AmFar and the Maybach Foundation and others.
John Paul DeJoria,
philanthropist and business leader most known as the co-founder of Paul
Mitchell hair products and Patron Spirits, will present Quincy Jones as a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the 2017 City Gala event.
Said DeJoria, “I consider Quincy Jones to
be a good friend to everyone, and am especially honored to present him
with the 2017 Lifetime Achievement award. Even more than his record of
27 Grammy wins, his devotion to philanthropy through the Quincy Jones Foundation
and in efforts to address cancer, malaria, and as an activist for
children makes him the ideal recipient of the Lifetime Achievement
award.”
Jeff Timmons, of the Grammy-nominated pop group 98 Degrees,
will return to the City Gala 2017, as emcee and best-selling author and
business conference leader Greg Reid, will moderate the event.
Says City Gala founder and executive producer Ryan Long,
“We are tremendously honored to present the 2017 program in support of
the International Arts & Philanthropy Foundation (IAP), which
provides funding in support of arts, education, early childhood
development, as well as the Breed Life program which supports and
facilitates the gift of life through live organ donation.”
In the coming days, City Gala will announce additional keynote speakers and special guest appearances for the 2017 event.
About City Gala
Since
its inception in 2015, the City Gala program has raised funds and
awareness in support of non-profit, charitable organizations. Based on
its success, the program has expanded in 2017 to include the City
Summit, a full-day and evening entertainment and networking experience
that brings together the highest level of entertainment and business
leaders in a common agenda of social consciousness, achievement, and a
dedication to giving forward to worthy humanitarian programs throughout
the world.
The City Summit is a business conference and networking event that takes place on Saturday February 11th at the USC Building – South Park Center.