Hospital Donation Key to Cozy Concert

Tucked into a toasty cor­ner of the Bar­bara & Bill Richard­son Pavil­ion on a cold win­ter night, UNM Hos­pi­tal patients and staff, along with Health Sci­ences Cen­ter (HSC) employ­ees, were treated to a very spe­cial con­cert made pos­si­ble by the gen­er­ous gift of a Bald­win grand piano by Karen-Lynn Fiato. Fiato donated the instru­ment in mem­ory of her late hus­band, Daniel Garza.

“This was an excep­tional evening of music per­formed by truly tal­ented artists from within UNM’s Health Sci­ences Cen­ter,” said Veron­ica Reed, a pro­fes­sional direc­tor and UNM alum cred­ited with coor­di­nat­ing the evening’s per­for­mance. While the frigid wind howled out­side on an early Jan­u­ary evening, about 60 peo­ple from all cor­ners of UNM’s North Cam­pus gath­ered near the fire­place, sam­pling sump­tu­ous sweets while tak­ing in a breadth of music and enter­tain­ment that included Coun­try West­ern, Clas­si­cal, Jazz, Mid­dle East­ern, and other eth­nic musi­cal gen­res. The price of admis­sion? A book dona­tion to UNM Children’s Hospital.

“This inau­gural pre­sen­ta­tion of ‘Sounds & Sweets’ was a won­der­fully inti­mate event that pulled peo­ple from all parts of our health care home into an ele­gant space in the Pavil­ion to share a unique energy and mood that only live music can evoke,” says UNM Pedi­a­tri­cian Dr. Court­ney John­son, who helped to develop and coor­di­nate the event. “Karen Fiato’s gift is so unusual and won­der­ful. Our patients and staff will enjoy this par­tic­u­lar dona­tion for years to come,” adds Sheena Fer­gu­son, UNM Hospital’s chief nurs­ing offi­cer who accepted the donation.

The idea of such an in-house con­cert came from Johnson’s col­league at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine in St. Louis, Mo. Delec­table sweets were pro­vided by UNMH Food & Nutri­tion Ser­vices, and the piano was mas­ter­fully tuned by UNM Depart­ment of Music’s Fred Sturm. With col­lab­o­ra­tion from HSC admin­is­tra­tion and staff, the UNM Music Depart­ment, and UNMH admin­is­tra­tion and nurs­ing staff, “Sounds and Sweets” is expected to be an annual event.

“We enjoyed great sup­port from within UNM, but also from Jer­sey Jacks and Serafian’s Ori­en­tal Rugs, who pro­vided addi­tional food and ele­gance for the event,” John­son adds. “It’s impor­tant that we do right by our sup­port­ers. With this par­tic­u­lar gift, we wanted to bring together patients, physi­cians, and staff to cel­e­brate Ms. Fiato’s gen­eros­ity, and to enjoy an eclec­tic blend of musi­cal per­for­mances – a gift to patients of all ages and to those here who help heal.”