Andy Farber Sextet to Perform Jazz, Swing, Standards at Vanderbilt Museum Centennial Celebration

Elegant Evening of Cocktails, Dinner and Dancing Set for Saturday, September 25

Andy Farber, a Huntington native and leading New York City musician who has played with many jazz greats and noted orchestras, will perform with his sextet on September 25, when the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium observes its centennial with a gala benefit. The celebration will begin with cocktails from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the elegant courtyard of William K. Vanderbilt II's mansion and waterfront estate, which he called "Eagle's Nest."

The festive evening will include dinner and dancing from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the Vanderbilt's wide-ranging education programs in the arts and sciences.

The event also offers the rare opportunity to dine at a sprawling, landmark American estate and to listen and dance to live music from the period when the Vanderbilt family lived at Eagle's Nest and entertained guests that included European royalty, captains of industry and Hollywood stars.

Farber, who released his latest CD, "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," on September 1, will play jazz standards and hits from the American Popular Songbook by artists that include Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Frank Loesser, and Rodgers and Hart.

Farber just completed a tour with Wynton Marsalis, has recorded and toured with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and with Jon Hendricks & Co. and Marcus Roberts, and has worked as a freelance composer, arranger and conductor. Follow this link to see and hear Andy Farber and His Orchestra perform at Birdland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsXQvUrEsR8

The gala will observe the one-hundredth anniversary of William K. Vanderbilt II's purchase of the land for his estate and mansion—now home to the Vanderbilt Museum—in May 1910.

The Vanderbilt's 2010 honoree will be the Honorable Jon Cooper, majority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature. Long a champion of the Vanderbilt, Cooper has been instrumental in helping the museum to secure capital-program support.

Tickets, at $100 per person, may be purchased by calling the Vanderbilt at 631-854-5579, or on the museum's website: www.vanderbiltmuseum.org. All guests must RSVP by September 17. Proceeds will benefit the Vanderbilt's education programs.

Sponsorship tickets also are available: Circumnavigator at $10,000; Explorer at $5,000; Adventurer at $2,500; Geographer at $1,000; Voyager at $500, Tourist at $100 and Stowaway at $50. (The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum is a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt organization. All donations in excess of $60 per ticket may be tax-deductible to the extent of the law.)

Vanderbilt's Legacy of Exploration and Education

A century ago, the global explorer, adventurer and railroad heir William K. Vanderbilt II found a beautiful rolling hillside on Little Neck above Northport Harbor. He bought 20 acres of that hill on May 27, 1910, and hired a noted architecture firm to design and build a bachelor's bungalow, a long wharf and the foundation for a boathouse. Vanderbilt's summer home, expanded over the years to 24 rooms, became one of the grand, historic Long Island Gold Coast estates, which he called "Eagles' Nest."

The Vanderbilt— built in three stages from 1910 until 1936—is a unique combination of historic estate and mansion, marine and natural-history museum, planetarium and park. The spectacular mansion, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and home to the Vanderbilt Museum, annually welcomes 100,000 visitors and 50,000 schoolchildren.

William K. Vanderbilt II circumnavigated the globe twice in the 1930s in his ocean-going yacht, and brought back significant collections of natural-history specimens—birds, fish and invertebrates—as well as ethnographic artifacts from Africa and Asia. He pioneered auto racing in the United States, established the Vanderbilt Cup Races, spurred the development of the American auto industry, and built the prototype for the first toll road, the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway on Long Island. 

Suffolk County acquired the museum in 1947 and opened it to the public in 1950. Vanderbilt's 24-room, Spanish-Revival mansion was designed by the New York architectural firm Warren & Wetmore, whose Grand Central Terminal in New York City (1903-13) was designed and built for the New York Central Railroad, one of several Vanderbilt family enterprises. Later additions to the mansion and other estate buildings were executed by the architect Ronald H. Pearce.