Gala attendees: front row, honorees Karen Joyner, left, and Dionne Warwick; back row, from left: Stephan Quentzel, MD, Medical Director, Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine; honorees Sharon Mahn and Michael Leitman, MD; and Joanne Loewy, DA, LCAT, MT-BC.
Broadway singer Rema Webb, who appears in The Color Purple, the jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis, saxophonist Erik Lawrence, and the Garry Dial Trio entertained nearly 200 guests at the 11th annual “What a Wonderful World” gala, held Monday, September 26, at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan.
Hosted by the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, this year’s honorees included four people who have made a difference in the lives of others: music legend Dionne Warwick; Michael Leitman, MD, Professor of Surgery, and Graduate Medical Education, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; patient Karen Joyner; and philanthropist Sharon Mahn, founder and Chief Executive Officer of the recruiting firm Mahn Consulting, LLC.
Guests enjoyed an evening of jazz and cocktails, a choir performance by stroke patients, and a silent auction to benefit the Center’s clinical services throughout the Mount Sinai Health System. Mercedes Ellington, dancer, choreographer, and granddaughter of Duke Ellington, and Bill Daughtry, host of WBGO jazz and sports radio programs, served as emcees. Donna Sirlin and Helen Greenbaum were co-chairs.
“We are proud of the breadth and scope of patients we serve and our growing research projects with doctors and nurses, from neonatal care to oncology and stroke,” says Joanne Loewy, DA, LCAT, MT-BC, founder and Director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine.
The Music Therapy Department at Mount Sinai Beth Israel provides a range of clinical services to adults and children, both in-house and in the community, including those with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, asthma, and developmental delays. The department’s music therapists are licensed to provide care that complements medical treatment, assisting with sedation, pain management, and respiratory functioning.