Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 1:23PM Talk of the Town reports on the Gala
The RSO celebrated music and dance with their 2011 Gala held last night at the Salem Golf Club in North Salem. This year’s gala included great food, a spirited auction, and a friendly dancing competition with some of Ridgefield’s biggest stars paired with local dance professionals. More...
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 2:16PM The News-Times
Ridgefield resident Reed Whipple said he always admired dancers performing on stage, executing elaborate and sophisticated steps, twists, and turns in front of large audiences. Until recently, however, he never imagined he would be one of them.
Whipple will dance in the second annual "Dancing with the RSO" Spring Gala, a fundraiser to support the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra.
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:40PM The Ridgefield Press considers how area non-profits work together
Dr. Edward James, chief of the Department of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Danbury Hospital, heads up an enterprise of surpassing seriousness: the hospital’s $8 million project to quadruple the size of its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and equip it with the latest technology for saving pre-term infants. Soon Dr. James will be treating his patients — the 400-or-so tiniest and most fragile babies born at the hospital each year — in a superb state-of-the-art facility.
But this article is about dancing the night away. How does a neonatologist figure in? More...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 10:33PM When Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra director Gina Wilson asked me to participate in the RSO’s “Dancing With the Stars” gala, I answered yes without giving much thought. It was not until the first meeting in December—with the other “stars” and the professional dancers—that I realized what I had gotten myself into. I was paired with Amy Coyle from the Art of Dance in Georgetown. A fabulous dancer and teacher. The first thing I learned is that she and her partner won the RSO dance competition last year, and she hoped to do so this time around. Only problem: I can’t dance. No pressure.
Now what I thought was going to be a few hours of training for a fun, two-minute dance in front of a wine-filled crowd at the Salem Golf Club has become something much greater. Amy and I selected “Can’t Stop the Beat,” from Hairspray. Then we agreed to meet weekly—weekly—starting in January.
The dancing gala is its biggest fundraiser of the year. Not only is there a price of entry, but guests, once wined and dined, pay to vote for us dancers. So those of you who have made it to the end of this letter, please take the extra step: go to ridgefieldsymphony.org, sign up for the April 9 gala, and once there put it all in the Morris-Coyle jar. You just can’t stop the beat.
We invited four community leaders to help us compile a list of the best things about Ridgefield: First Selectman Rudy Marconi, Aldrich staffer Richard Klein, Chamber director Marion Roth, and history buff Gary Singer. Check out “Fabulous 50,” on page 47 of this issue, for the list they ultimately compiled. —Geoffrey James Morris