ASF Spring Gala

L-R: Mrs. Kerstin Eliasson, Ambassador Charles A. Heimbold, H.E. Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and Mrs. Monika A. Heimbold, recipient of the American Scandinavian Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Public Service. 

  • ASF Board Chair Bente Svensen Frantz; First Lady of Iceland Dorrit Moussaieff; H.E. Ólafur Ragnar GrÍmsson, President of Iceland; H.E. Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mrs. Kerstin Eliasson; ASF President Edward P. Gallagher

  • New York based American Scandinavian Foundation held its annual Spring Gala at The Pierre on May 1. The Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson may have been announced as guest of honor but this is the event of the year where really every member and every volunteer of the organization is a guest of honor.

  • Patrick Guetti with Lena B Kaplan. Recipient of the 2014 ASF Birgit Nilsson Award Mr. Guetti received the Birgit Nilsson Award at the 2014 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The brainchild of Mrs. Kaplan this award was established in 1988 on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of New Sweden, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It was endowed through the proceeds of a gala concert in April 1988, honoring the legendary Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson.

  • The ASF Gold Medal was presented to President Grímsson of Iceland as well as the Helsinki based Sibelius Academy for its efforts to further Finnish music culture and tradition.

  • L-R: Mrs. Kerstin Eliasson, Ambassador Charles A. Heimbold, H.E. Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and Mrs. Monika A. Heimbold, recipient of the American Scandinavian Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Public Service.

  • The ASF Award for Distiguished Public Service was presented to Monica A. Heimbold, whose “passion for, and dedication to, the well-being and development of children has been a unifying theme in her professional and philantropic work.”

  • Suffice to say Mrs. Heimbold is among the people of the world who truly put their work where their hearts are. To once again paraphrase Deputy Secretary-General Eliasson, “If we can only all strive to do a little something every day to move the world from where it is to where it should be, our world would be a lot different.”
    Mrs. Heimbold does just that. /UBM

  • Photography: Christine Butler/American-Scandinavian Foundation

  • For more info, see www.amscan.org