Can You Fight Poverty with a Five-Star Hotel?
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Is the International Finance Coporation (IFC), the World Bank’s investment arm, an experiment run amok? Do billionaires and massive multinational corporations really need help from the World Bank and do their projects support or detract from the World Bank’s purpose? Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, financial journalist and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, addresses these questions as she speaks about her investigation into the IFC’s chosen investments.
Although the IFC’s mission is to create opportunity for people to escape poverty and improve their lives, the IFC appears to be more in the business of giving loans to billionaires and massive multinational corporations to finance projects that do not help the needy. As Einhorn explains, the IFC has been financing luxury hotels and high end shopping malls in poverty-stricken areas such as Ghana, and supporting gold and copper mines and oil pipelines to benefit primarily the corrupt authoritarian regimes that control them in Cameroon and Chad.
Hear Einhorn discuss her findings, which echo the criticisms made by a broad array of academics, watchdog groups, and grass roots organizations in the poorest countries, that the IFC has been subsidizing projects that have little impact on poverty and could just as easily have been undertaken without IFC funding. Find out what else has happened since her article on this topic was published in Foreign Policy Magazine earlier this year.
All are welcome to this special event on Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the Scott Room of the Scarsdale Public Library. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Scarsdale Public Library and the Scarsdale Adult School in celebration of SAS’s 75th anniversary. Admission is free of charge but a suggested donation of $10 to the Scarsdale Adult School would be much appreciated to help sustain continuous quality programs.
Scarsdale Art Association Offers Artwork For Rent
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Looking to spruce your space up? Not sure what kind of artwork you truly love or how a piece will look in your home? Scarsdale Art Association has a solution... a totally new and different program that offers artwork for rent. This concept allows art to be rented and tried at your home or office before you make a purchase. Paintings by various artists are on display in the Leahey Galley at the Girl Scout House. These paintings are offered for rent, or for purchase (should a piece speak to you immediately!). Each painting on display is clearly marked with the rental fee and direct contact for each artist. Try it out and live with it for up to three months. And as a bonus, all rental fees paid are credited toward the sale price of each piece. And, a percentage of any sale will be donated to the Girl Scouts.
The rental fees as well as the sale prices are very reasonable and allow anyone to consider decorating their 
home with art they truly love. This is a great chance to try out artwork in your home before committing to purchase.
For more information please call Nancy Abbe at 914-723-1708 or Marie Murray at 914-779-3505.
Pictured at top: Bottles, Oil by Marie Murray
Pictured at right: Seascape by Nancy Abbe
Art Festival Returns to Scarsdale Village May 18 and 19
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The art festival returns to Scarsdale Village for its fourth year on the weekend of May 18 and 19 when 65 artists will display their work on Chase Road. Hosted by the Scarsdale Chamber of Commerce, the event brings painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelers, digital artists, glass, fiber, ceramic and mixed media artists to the Village.
You can meet the artists who will be on hand throughout the event and purchase their original, hand-made artwork.
Hours of the Westchester Festival of the Arts are Saturday May 18th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday May 19th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The show is located on Chase Rd. with free garage parking. The show is conveniently located near the Scarsdale Metro North Station.
For more information about the festival visit their website or contact Bill Kinney at 631-421-1590.
Open Studio Weekend for Artist Jill Krutick
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Abstract artist Jill Krutick will host an open studio weekend at her home at 32 Tisdale Road in Scarsdale on May 10, 11 and 12 from 4pm to 7 pm daily. A former investment analyst and media executive, Krutick has transitioned into the art world and is now focused on creating value on the canvas rather than in the portfolio.
Influenced by her love of art masters both old and new, such as Van Gogh, Monet and Gerhardt Richter, Ms. Krutick produces work that is both abstract and imaginative. "An exploration of my works should reveal as much about a viewer's emotional state as it does mine. The oil painting may be abstract or it may be representational, but what makes the painting come to life is the interplay of light, colors, textures, shapes and spaces," Ms. Krutick suggests.
Since turning her full time attention to art, Ms. Krutick has had numerous solo and group art shows. Recently, Ms. Krutick was selected to exhibit her works at a gallery housed in the SOHO-based offices of Splashlight, a leading producer of fashion photography and e-commerce content. Among Splashlight's top clients are ALDO, Ann Taylor + LOFT, Bloomingdales, Jockey, Macy's and Nordstrom. Splashlight's North Hall Gallery has presented many award winning artists and photographers, such as Peter Ruprecht, Storm Thorgerson and Eric Demarchelier. She was chosen by Artsicle, a leading online art website that encourages emerging artists, as a "Trending Artist" -- based on the number of artworks users have "favorited". In addition, she was selected by the offices of Partner's International and A.T. Kearney -- two well-recognized consulting firms -- to have several of her works in residence.
Krutick's exhibition at her studio located at 32 Tisdale Road will include dozens of her paintings. To attend, please R.S.V.P. by phone at 914-522-042-, by email at [email protected] and visit her site at www.jskartstudio.com to learn more.
Opera and Love Story to Debut at Shaarei Tikvah on Sunday
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Steal a Pencil for Me, a new opera with music by Gerald Cohen and libretto by Deborah Brevoort, will premiere on Sunday April 28 at 2 pm at Shaarei Tikvah in Scarsdale. The opera is a love story set in two concentration camps during World War II based on the true story of Jaap and Ina Polak, whom the composer has known for the last 25 years, and who just celebrated their 100th and 90th birthdays.
The Polaks, who live in Eastchester, will attend the performance. They have dedicated their lives to teaching about the Holocaust and fighting prejudice. Jaap was one of the founders of the Anne Frank Center USA, and now serves as Chairman Emeritus.
The action of the opera takes place in Amsterdam, at Westerbork Transit camp, and at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp between the years of 1943-1945. Thirty-year old Jaap Polak is unhappily married to Manja, a social butterfly with a sharp tongue. He falls in love with twenty-year old Ina Soep, whose boyfriend, Rudi Acohen, has been seized and deported to Poland by the Nazis. When the husband, his wife, and his new girlfriend are deported to Westerbork, they actually find themselves living in the same barracks. Jaap's wife objects to the relationship and Jaap and Ina resort to writing secret love letters, which sustain them throughout the horrible circumstances of the war.
As Jaap says: "I'm a very special Holocaust survivor. I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend; and believe me, it wasn't easy."
Although friends and relatives of theirs, including Rudi, perished in the camps, Jaap and Ina survived the Holocaust. They have been married for over 65 years and now live in Eastchester. A distinguishing feature of their book of letters is how they allowed the story to unfold; unedited; their shortcomings and faults are just as easy to see as their nobility, and their honesty makes the story compelling and real. The Village Voice wrote that their story "offers a corrective to the sentimental prevailing notion that the Shoah only happened to saints."
The cast and a small instrumental ensemble will be conducted by Ari Pelto and with stage direction by Beth Greenberg. This production will star Ilana Davidson and Robert Balonek as Ina and Jaap, and the cast will also include vocal soloists Toby Newman, Nils Neubert, Cherry Duke. Ricardo Rivera, Matthew Singer, Miloslav Antonov, and Enrico Lagasca. Cori Ellison serves as dramaturg and artistic consultant.
New York-based composer Gerald Cohen has composed of chamber music, choral music, opera, and liturgical music, and won awards and praise for all. Gramophone Magazine noted his "linguistic fluidity and melodic gift". His operas Sarah and Hagar, a two-act opera based on the story from the book of Genesis, and Seed, a one-act opera about love and choices for a post-apocalyptic Adam and Eve, have been performed in concert form. Cohen received a B.A in music from Yale University and a D.M.A in composition from Columbia University.
New York-based librettist Deborah Brevoort is formerly from Alaska. An award-winning playwright and librettist, she moves easily between the worlds of theatre, musical theatre and opera. Her plays and musicals are produced regularly to enthusiastic reviews, including Time Out London who noted her "gift for high poetry." Deborah holds a B.A. from Kent State University and MFA's from Brown University and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
A semi-staged concert opera performance will take place on Sunday at Shaarei Tikvah Congregation at 46 Fox Meadow Road in Scarsdale. Individual tickets are $30 at the door; $25 in advance; $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Please contact (914) 472-2013 or [email protected].
