The event is open to the public, though limited tickets are available. Members of the public wanting to attend the tribute should complete an online RSVP form on NASA’s website by May 15. The free tickets, which are being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, will be available to pickup from NASA’s will call tables at the Kennedy Center on the day of the event.

About Sally Ride:

On June 18, 1983, Ride made history launching on space shuttle Challenger as the first American woman to fly in space. Chosen by NASA in 1978, Ride held a doctorate in physics and was a nationally-ranked tennis player prior to becoming an astronaut. She flew twice to space, logging a total of more than two weeks off the planet, before leaving NASA and becoming a champion for science education. Ride died July 23, 2012, 17 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

Sally as a Mentor:

Ride left NASA in August 1987 to join the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, as a professor of physics and director of the University of California’s California Space Institute. In 2001, she founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, to pursue her long-time passion of motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology.

Find out more about Sally Ride and her contributions at www.nasa.gov.

Event information:

Sally Ride: A Lifetime of Accomplishment, A Champion of Science Literacy – an educational tribute to America’s first woman in space.

When: May 20, 2013 at 7 p.m. EDT
Where: Washington D.C., John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

This is how the shortage of clean water is putting many people into a growing spiral of poverty and hunger around the world. Ebele, whose name in Igbo-language means “mourning”, is not alone. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that globally multitudes of women and children spend a total of over 10 million years fetching water from distant, unsafe sources!

That is why multi-Grammy award winner Patti Austin looks to help empower women like Ebele through ChangeCorp’s The SmartWoman Project, for which she serves as Global Ambassador.

“Women are the main resource for finding and transporting water to their families in developing countries,” Ms. Austin says. “We want the women to participate, be aware so that they can advance from just being the water bearers.”

ChangeCorp launched this initiative using mobile technology as its platform. The SmartWoman Project aims to raise awareness on the plight of women around the world and to empower them by leveraging on the combined strengths of social networking and impact in developing countries and economies.

Louise M. Guido, ChangeCorp’s CEO, sums up these efforts in a recent Cisco.com interview.

“If you’re trying to reach a woman farmer or business-owner in Kenya, she probably doesn’t have a landline or a computer, but she does have a mobile phone,” says Guido. “There are more people in Africa who have phones than have electricity. So we figure, if that’s the only way to get to them, you might as well give them something they can use, that will be helpful, that will bring them up in society, help them learn what’s wrong and right about market prices, about dealing with social issues, and so on.”

Hoping that by targeting the entrepreneurial poor, particularly women, the e-learning content of The SmartWomen Project will trickle down to the grassroots and eventually empower women like Ebele through awareness politically and health-wise.

Ms. Austin lends a credible face to the advocacy, as she is known not only for her music but for her efforts in changing people’s lives through “mentorology”—a term she coined with her longtime best friend, songwriter Dawn Carroll—which simply means the art of mentoring.

“For me, mentorology is a powerful way to open the hearts and minds of people… (along with) social networking as the ‘stimulus package’ to re-energize the focus on forward thinking approaches to education as the key factor in eradicating poverty for the coming generation,” said Ms. Austin. “Learning should never stop for all age groups. We can empower millions to realize the opportunity to help shape a new society.”

The SmartWoman Project connects women around the globe to gain empowerment through support communities, networking, mentoring, job access and a marketplace. This initiative is officially endorsed by the United Nations ITU (International Telecommunication Union), encouraging governments to provide communities with digital access.

As the acclaimed “2012 – 2013 Celebrity Series” of the Cleveland Orchestra concludes, “Patti will be singing jazz classics and all-time favorites, ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, ‘You’ll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)’, ‘Cottontail’, ‘I Got It Bad’, selections by Duke Ellington and a lot more.

Patti has been performing and doing concerts with jazz bands and symphony orchestras all throughout US and Europe since after the release of her tribute CD for Ella in 2002. The album for Ella, which was recorded at WDR Studio 4 in Köln, Germany, was nominated for a Grammy Award and hit the top charts for Jazz category.

Event info:
Celebrity Series – Patti Austin: Music of Ella and Ellington
Severance Hall
11001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH.

For tickets and more information call 216-231-1111 or toll free number 800-686-1141, or visit online at clevelandorchestra.com.

The Leaders of Design Council Conference starts today April 3rd, and will run through April 5th at the Hotel de Rome. Patti will be gracing the event with a live performance on the gala night on April 5. The event is private to the members of the Design Council.

Patti and Dawn are bringing the award series “Designing the Next Generation” to Germany. These series of awards, created by OMSF and Cumar Marble and Granite, are given to people who share their belief in the power of mentoring not only to push music and design concepts to a higher level but also as a way of changing lives.

Patti Austin is set to teach at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music as the school’s artist-in-residence for the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance program this fall. The program, named after the late jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, is a two-year graduate level full-scholarship program which allows an ensemble of gifted young jazz musicians to study under the tutelage of visiting performance artists.

Patti Austin is best known for her jazz performances and R&B hits such as In My Life, If I Believed and her duets with James Ingram, Baby Come to Me and How Do You Keep the Music Playing. But her most important contribution to the music industry may just prove to be her efforts in mentoring other artists through the non-profit Over My Shoulder Foundation — an organization that aims to break down barriers between generations and cultures to allow for self-empowerment and the transference of knowledge across the disciplines of music and design—a method which the foundation aptly calls Mentorology.

Patti co-founded the Over My Shoulder Foundation with close friend, songwriter and stone designer Dawn Carroll, a testament to their growing passion for Mentorology or the art and science of mentoring people who need a helping hand to achieve their dreams. Patti articulates the role mentoring played in her personal and professional life, first by her parents and most notably the close guidance of her godparents, Grammy multi-award winner Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington.

“For me, music is the strongest door opener to the hearts and minds of the people. I want to use recorded music, videos, concerts and social networking as the ‘stimulus package’ to re-energize the focus on forward thinking approaches to education as the key factor in eradicating poverty for the coming generation,” said Patti. “Learning should never stop for all age groups. We can empower millions to realize the opportunity to help shape a new society of creative ‘mentorologists’ in all areas of life.”

Through the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance program, a two-year graduate level scholarship program led by jazz artists Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Austin will be able to share her expertise which transcends every musical genre. Sitting down with the students from April 1-3 April 1-2 May 22-23, she will listen to the students play and discuss technical issues such as sound, time, articulation, along with the nuts-and-bolts of their improvisation.

Patti Austin and music mentee Santana Roberts.

Patti’s mentees are all praise about her. “I’m beginning to live my anticipated dream and I look back on my young life and know that without the mentorship of Patti Austin my fire could have gone out,” remarked Santana Roberts. “Alongside my mom, I want to thank Ms. Austin for being my source of inspiration and continuing to believe in me.”

About the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance

The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, a nonprofit education organization, was founded in 1986 by the Monk family and the late Maria Fisher, an opera singer and lifelong devotee of music. Its mission is to offer the world’s most promising young musicians college level training by internationally acclaimed jazz masters and to present public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the world. All of these programs are offered free of charge to the students and schools, filling a tremendous void in arts education. The Institute’s programs encourage children to develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self-image, and a respect for their own and others’ cultural heritage.

The idea to join the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and UCLA was introduced by the Herb Alpert Foundation, which has provided long-term support to both organizations. The planning process has culminated in a unique UCLA/TMIJ masters program specific to jazz performance. Each student in the highly select group of gifted young musicians accepted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance is provided a full scholarship. In this performance-based program, the students will study with the Herb Alpert School of Music’s roster of outstanding jazz teachers. Learn more at www.monkinstitute.org.

Other performers, artists, actors & actresses to attend the event are: Barbra Streisand Bono, Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, Chris Tucker, Herbie Hancock, Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks, Scarlett Johansson, Siedah Garrett, Stevie Wonder, Terrence Howard, Whoopi Goldberg, will.i.am and more.

The Power of Love Gala is a fundraiser for the Las Vegas-based Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. For registration and more info, visit www.keepmemoryalive.org.

Life’s Joy and Celebration‘s lyrics is written by Patti Austin. It’s a reflection of how she feels about life and her career.

Life’s Joy and Celebration

Lyrics by: Patti Austin
Music by: Jamie Mitges

Get a copy of this song on Amazon.
(also available on iTunes)

About Jamie Mitges:
One of Canada’s great independent jazz players, Jamie has carved out a respected place in jazz through his three CDs and collaborations with the likes of Ed Bickert, Don Thompson, Peter Appleyard, Joe LaBarbera and Brent Bodrug.

As a boy in Guelph, Ontario in the 1960s, Jamie would sit on his grandmother’s knee, mesmerized as her concert pianist’s fingers flew over the keys. At age six, Jamie was playing the piano and steeped in his parents’ classical, blues and jazz albums. Some of his childhood heroes were Louis Armstrong, Glen Miller and Count Basie.

Jamie’s love affair with the saxophone began in his early teens. On a car trip during the summer of 1975, Jamie heard Sanborn on the radio playing James Taylor’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).” Jamie decided he wanted to play like that. At 17, Jamie became a student of Juno-award winning Pat LaBarbera, one of the ?nest saxophone players in the world. (Pat was lead tenor saxophone soloist in Buddy Rich’s band for many years.)

As Jamie’s proficiency grew, his style became increasingly resonant of the old masters like Zoot Sims, Stan Getz and Ben Webster.

Quotes from Jazz Legends about Jamie:

“Most players today have put the beautiful tone of the instrument in second place, but Jamie has done the opposite. His tone on the horn is exquisite, the best I’ve heard in a long time. It was a great pleasure being on this recording with Ed, Don, Joe and Jamie.” – Peter Appleyard

“This session was a real pleasure. James has that sound and feel of the tenor sax greats of the 40s.” – Ed Bickert

“It was a pleasure recording with James; I enjoyed his playing and the songs he picked. It’s nice to hear a young guy pick a style that’s not necessarily the current rage. As for Don, Ed and Peter, they’re the best.” – Joe Labarbera

As a performer, songwriter and vocalist, Patti Austin has had a star-studded career that began at the age of four, making her one of the most beloved artists over the world and a mainstay on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts. Because of how important mentoring has been to Patti’s success and throughout her life, she co-founded the Over My Shoulder Foundation. Patti attributes much of her musical success to her mentors most notably the close guidance of her godparents Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington.

BWME’s connections in media and entertainment make this inspiring signature series, “The Story Behind Her Success”, possible. The host sits down for a live one-on-one interview and a meet & greet reception follows the interview.

For more information visit www.bwme.org.

BWME’s The Story Behind Her Success
March 25th 2013
6:30pm-8:30pm
Westin Copley Place, Boston
Reserve Tickets

The song is dedicated to all domestic violence victims.

Often times the man shows no remorse — this song calls for at least an apology and recognition of wrong doing.

This song calls for real communication.

Download “You Don’t Have To Say You’re Sorry” by Patti Austin, click the arrow button below.

You Don’t Have to Say You’re Sorry

Happy International Women’s day!