David Foster and friends to play free Inner Harbour concert in August
Victoria’s David Foster will celebrate four decades of fundraising with a red-carpet event and concert at the Inner Harbour this summer.
The Grammy Award-winning producer will be joined by Jay Leno, Josh Groban, Katharine McPhee and others for 40th anniversary celebrations for the David Foster Foundation, which includes an Aug. 7 black-tie gala fundraiser and private party at the Victoria Conference Centre and an Aug. 8 free concert at the Inner Harbour.
“This one is going to be our last major fundraiser of the foundation,” Mike Ravenhill, chief executive officer of the David Foster Foundation, told the Times Colonist on Tuesday. “David and I were talking, and we thought, why not come back to Victoria, where we started, and do our last major fundraiser?”
The foundation, which provides financial support for families with children in need of life-saving organ transplants, has assisted upwards of 1,600 families with a variety of non-medical expenses, including travel, accommodation and mortgage assistance.
The foundation will move away from large-scale events in the future, Ravenhill said, in order to transition from a fundraising foundation into an operational foundation that administers its multimillion-dollar endowment.
John Travolta, Michael J. Fox, Rob Lowe and Olivia Newton-John were among the ball-playing guests during the 1980s, before the foundation switched to concerts as its primary means of raising funds.
The foundation’s 25th anniversary events in 2012 also featured a Victoria gala and concert, with Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali and Michael Bublé helping to raise $4.6 million for the charity.Additional performers on tap for the 40th anniversary events this summer include the Tenors, former American Idol contestant Pia Toscano, America’s Got Talent finalist Daniel Emmet, and Jersey Boys actor-singer Erich Bergen.
“We wanted to come back and say thank you to Victoria,” Ravenhill said. More guests will be announced in the coming months, he added. “We are going to have lots of entertainers, lots of energy and lots of surprises.”
The celebration at the Victoria Conference Centre will be followed by an exclusive VIP after-party at the Fairmont Empress, featuring live performances by The London Essentials and the Rhapsody Orchestra.
Foster will perform on a floating barge accompanied by the Victoria Symphony at the Inner Harbour event, with surprise guests expected to appear.
“We are going to take the bar and raise it,” Ravenhill said.
For more details, visit davidfosterfoundation.com.