Artistically Social with Amy Rosenberg
Overture to Overtown
Amy Rosenberg is an attorney and arts advocate who founded the Overtown Music Project and the Arsht Center’s young patrons group. She is the co-founder of the environmental non-profit Dream in Green. Amy is a member of Art Basel’s Junior Host Committee and sits on the Board of the Funding Arts Network. She also serves on the New World Symphony’s Friends Committee as well as The Wolfsonian-FIU’s Visionaries Committee.
Overture to Overtown
The Betsy is one of the few outposts of sanity and serenity on Ocean Drive. Who knew that beneath that beautiful Florida Georgian facade they have such a rich and textured philanthropy and arts program? The Betsy’s programming is led by the amazing Deborah Briggs, a woman who brings community consciousness to her role as Vice President for Philanthropy. I had the chance to get to know Deborah and Jean Villamizar, Manager for Marketing, over a bowl of BLT’s creamy butternut squash soup and popovers. That meeting led to Overtown Music Project’s participation in “Overture to Overtown,” a week of celebrating the community once known as the “Harlem of the South.” Crooners Mel Dancy and Bobby Stringer sang to a packed audience full of movers and shakers from Overtown and Miami Beach. The place was packed and the spirit felt so right.
EPIC Night
For a month, I didn’t get more than two hours of sleep in preparation for EPIC, Overtown Music Project’s annual gala at LIV at the Fontainebleau. (A big thank you to the Boca Raton Resort and Spa for their lifesaving oxygen facial – without which, I would have looked 75). OMP put on a show featuring the Melton Mustafa Orchestra, Maseo from De La Soul on the ones and twos, Grammy Award winner Javier Garcia, G Love and singers who performed in the heyday of Overtown. The audience of 650 danced the night away. Rhonda Mitrani celebrated her birthday. Erin Newberg, Grammy Award winning music producer Rudy Perez, Rico Love, Liza Gallardo Walton, Marcia Martinez and Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones danced the night away.
Conversation with Creatives
Locust Projects continues to impress me with their intelligent and cutting edge programming. The alternative arts space brought in capacity crowds for Creative Time President and Artistic Director Anne Pasternak. The conversation about her trailblazing projects inspired dozens of creatives in the audience.
New and next…
I had the opportunity to explore the Hotel Intercontinental recently and was pleased as punch to discover they have a new art platform. I’m excited to see what tricks are up there sleeve in the coming months.
Until next time…
