The Viennese Opera Ball is a nonprofit association under Section 501(c)(3). Each year, it supports charitable projects that are connected to communities in New York or Vienna.
Beneficiary of the 66th Viennese Opera Ball
The Viennese Opera Ball is excited to work again with the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research to raise funds to benefit the music therapy program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research
In 1996, Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich, lived every parent’s worst fear as one of her three daughters, a beautiful 27-year-old actress and Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor named Gabrielle, succumbed to acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Gabrielle lost her battle, but her dream lives on in the work of the organization created in her memory, Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. It was Gabrielle’s idea to create a Foundation that would fund the best and brightest scientific investigators in the nation with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. Her mother and sisters, Daniella and Ilona, believed the best way to honor Gabrielle’s memory was to turn their extraordinary grief into a positive force for others.
The mission of Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research is to encourage the development of more effective therapies for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and related cancers.
Music played an important part during Gabrielle’s treatments and hospital stays. Because of this special connection, the Foundation has also provided support to music therapy programs at several institutions, including an annual grant to New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Music therapy programs provide one-on-one patient and family care with bedside visits as well as in the pre-surgical and post-operative suites. A solace to both patients and their families, trained therapists work closely as part of the interdisciplinary hospital teams that include physicians, nurses, social workers and chaplains. Often music therapy patients are referred for relief of symptoms such as pain, anxiety, social isolation and end-stage disease. Proceeds from the Viennese Opera Ball will directly benefit MSKCC’s music therapy program. For more information about the mission of Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation, please visit www.gabriellesangels.org
