Hamlisch Holiday Concert 2011

Episode # 84
Uploaded: January 18, 2012
Running Time: 02:18

CROWN: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.

When NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said, “If you’re humming it, he probably wrote it,” he was referring to renowned composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch. If an award exists in the entertainment field, Hamlisch has won it—as a composer he has three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globes.  Entertaining more than 150 patients and staff members during his annual holiday concert at the Clinical Center Dec. 20, Hamlisch performed with Broadway singer Gary Mauer. Although it was the 7th annual concert for NIH, it was the first time the event was held at the Clinical Center. Director Dr. John I. Gallin says:

GALLIN: This year we decided to try an experiment doing this here so that more patients and more staff could have the opportunity a few moments of happiness.  

CROWN: Previous performances have been at the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge. Hamlisch’s friend, Mrs. Lily Safra, along with the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, provided the principal private funding for the Family Lodge construction through the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, which helps to coordinate the concerts. Dr. Scott Campbell, executive director and CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, says:

CAMPBELL: The intent of this is to not only help give back to the NIH staff who are here, you know, the people who are in the Clinical Center providing state-of-the-art care for people with usually pretty challenging diseases. Our big thing is we want to give back to the patients. We want them to take a little bit of time away from their trials and tribulations in the Clinical Center and just enjoy themselves for maybe an hour or so, and then go back fighting the good fight.

CROWN: From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Ellen Crown, at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

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