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JOIN US FOR A FUNDRAISER HONORING LARRY FARBER CHAICHAI ONON LALAUGHTERUGHTER AANNDD AALLLL THTHATATJAJAZZ!ZZ! NOVEMBER 6, 2021 6:00PM SANDRA LEVINE THEATRE AT QUEENS UNIVERSITY OF CHARLOTTE FEATURING: 3 EMMY Louie Anderson Awards BEST-SELLING ONE OF THE Author 100 Greatest STAND UP COMEDIANS OF ALL TIME HEAVY HORS D’OEURVES, OPEN BAR, AUCTION, & JAZZ PERFORMED BY NOEL FREIDLINE & MARIA HOWELL GUEST OF HONOR: Larry Farber Through music and faith, Larry Farber has devoted his life to the cause of building harmony. As Rabbi Asher Knight puts it, “Larry is synonymous with music, friendship, laughter and community leadership.” This evening, we honor Larry with the Blumenthal Lifetime Achievement Award, our way of saying thank you for a life of mitzvot. Born and raised in Charlotte, Larry discovered music at an early age. His parents, Charles and Syd Farber, encouraged him to follow his heart. His uncle, big band leader Jack Oberman, would put Larry on his lap and play the piano. The music set a young man on the path of a lifetime. He learned his first song when he was 11 – “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He formed his first band when he was 12 – The Nightcaps, with Larry on keyboards. Their first gig? A bar mitzvah at Temple Israel, then on East Morehead Street. They made five bucks apiece. Larry was off and running, performing in various bands through his years at McClintock Junior High, Myers Park High, UNC-Chapel Hill and into adulthood. He was no spring chicken when his band, Limited Edition, played its last gig in 2017. Larry didn’t just fall in love with playing music. He found joy in managing, booking and promoting bands, and in launching musical ventures. How many in the audience arranged their child’s bar mitzvah and wedding bands through Larry Farber? The memories he gave us! The checks we had to write! What a resume: Larry opened his first club, The Boardwalk on Monroe Road, the place to go for beach music. He booked bands for Hit Attractions, then joined EastCoast Entertainment and helped turn it into a musical juggernaut with 15 offices, including one in Charlotte. Larry’s the type of guy who has 10 ideas before his second cup of coffee. In 1999, he helped launch Alive After Five, the popular uptown concert series. In 2007, he created Music With Friends, offering an intimate, private concert experience with legends like Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. If Music With Friends is Larry’s dream come true, the Middle C Jazz Cub is his legacy. In 2019, the club opened in uptown Charlotte, honoring the music of his childhood, when his home was filled with the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and more. Jazz lives here, thanks to Larry. All of this is part of the Larry Farber story, the dreams come true of a man who saw music as The Great Unifier. But it’s not the entire story. Larry’s faith inspires him to work for harmony in ways beyond music. He served as president of Temple Beth El from 2002 to 2004. He cre- ated a vision for a community fundraiser – One For All Ball – that has raised some $2 million to benefit the Jewish community. Want to put on a show to raise charitable dollars? Larry’s your man. He helped create Chai On Laughter in 2019, when we bestowed this same honor on Larry and Dale Polsky. He organized Laugh Til You Plotz comedy shows featuring legends like Jackie Mason and Gabe Kaplan. His work on behalf of Temple Beth El knows no bounds. He launched an initiative to recruit and train future lay leaders. The Robyn Farber Leadership Development Program honors his late sister, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1993, the day before her 40th birthday. Larry was also on the committees that helped bring us Rabbis Judy Schindler and Asher Knight. His love of children and families moved him to serve on the boards of the Family Center and Shelter for Battered Women. He also is a past president of the Carolinas’ Thanksgiving Day Parade. This evening, we honor Larry for all he has meant to the life of our community. We celebrate his beautiful family – his wife, Sherri McGirt; their three sons – Adam and his wife, Sarah, Harrison and his wife, Julia Gray, and Reid; and their three precious grandchildren, Sutton, Mac and Sam. From an early age, Larry Farber could see from his place on stage that music has the power to dissolve our differences. Young and old, black and white, rich and poor, together we dance to the beat of the same drummer. Thank you, Larry, for providing the soundtrack of hope. Louie Anderson Iconic comedian Louie Anderson, the three -timeEmmy Award® winner, is one of the country’s most recognized and adored comics; named by Comedy Central as “One of 100 Greatest Stand -Up Comedians of All Time.” His career has spanned more than 30 years. He is a best- selling author, star of his own standup specials and sitcoms and he continues to tour the country performing to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. In 2016, Anderson was cast to co -star along with Zach Galifianakis and Martha Kelly in the hit FX comedy series Baskets. Anderson plays the extraordinary role of Christine, the matriarch of the Baskets clan. He based the character on his mother and his five sisters who were all a major presence in his life.Anderson won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Christine Baskets in 2016. “I’m not as nice in the character as my mom was as a person. It really is an extension of my mom”, Anderson says, adding that he always aims to make his performance “as real as possible” without “affecting or cartooning it up. It felt like it was divine intervention when I got the call to be on the show, that somehow my mom, from the great beyond, was finally getting herself into show business where she truly be- longed in the first place.” As a standup, he shares the ups and downs of his childhood experiences as one of eleven children in Minnesota. Louie crafted comedy routines that rang true for his early club audiences while reducing them to helpless fits of laughter, routines that led him from his career as a counselor to troubled children to his national television debut on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1984. The rest is history. Leno, Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “Comic Relief,” Showtime, HBO and CMT specials followed, including hosting the legendary game show, Family Feud, making Louie a household name and opening doors for him as an actor. He has guest starred in sitcoms like “Grace Under Fire” and dramas like “Touched by an Angel” and “Chicago Hope,” and he has had memorable featured roles in film comedies like “Coming to America,” opposite of Eddie Murphy, and the classic “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In 1995, Louie put his creative energies to work on the Saturday morning animated series “Life with Louie.” The long- running series based on Louie’s own childhood and his life with his father won three Humanitas Prizes for writing on a children’s’ animated series, making him the only three -time recipient of this award. It also earned a Genesis Award for its depiction of the proper treatment of animals and, most significantly, two Emmy Awards. His best-selling books include “Dear Dad – Letters From An Adult Child”, a collection of alternately touching and outrageous letters from Louie to his late father, and “Good bye Jumbo…Hello Cruel World”, self-help for those who struggle with self-esteem issues, and his installment on family, “The F Word, How To Survive Your Family.” His most recent book, “Hey Mom,” pays tribute to his mother who he has channeled in his stand-up routine for decades. She died before seeing him reach his greatest heights, culminating in his breakout TV role as Christine Baskets, the mesmerizing character inspired by his mom, Ora Zella Anderson. This book is Louie’s way of catching her up on his triumphs, disappointments, and continuing challenges. There is heartache, but also great hope. There are also—given Louie’s inimitable voice—laugh-out-loud stories and observations on life’s absurdities, the kind only he could make. In 2013, he took a dive on the ABC reality series, “Splash” where he conquered his own fears while becoming an inspiration of hope. In that same year his standup Special, “Big Baby Boomer” premiered on CMT. In his most recent standup special, “Big Underwear,”(2018) taped at the historic Palace Theatre in Los Angeles. He plays on the challenges of getting healthy, life on the road, dealing with technology and how we all eventually become our parents. When not in production, Louie continues to tour, traveling the States doing what Louie loves to do, Stand-UpComedy. Louie again delivers to his fans his inimitable brand of humor and warmth. NOEL FREIDLINE & MARIA HOWELL PRESENT: AALLLL TTHHATATJAJAZZ!ZZ! Maria Howell – Vocals Noel Freidline – Piano and Vocals Adrian Crutchfield – Alto Saxophone Ziad Rabie – Tenor Saxophone Eric Brice – Guitar Zack Page – Bass Al Sergel – Drums MARIA & NOEL Maria Howell and Noel Freidline define chemistry. Musically they breath as one, communicating almost telepathically as they explore and re-interpret some of the best music of the last 80 years. Always approaching the music from “the left,” Noel and Maria have made a name for themselves as they offer listeners something they have heard, but that they have never heard before.