I was given the honor of photographing the Halle Cultural Arts Center Gala and Open House in Apex January 10-11th. It was truly an amazing event. I was impressed beyond my expectations! The presentations were amazing. The “Master and Mistress” of ceremonies were hilarious. The Gala was black tie and felt so “royal”. The Cultural Arts Center is a wonderful addition to Apex and I’m so excited that I got to be a part of its grand opening celebration.

Below are just a few of the 500+ photos taken during the days’ events and the full galleries to the Gala and Open House are available to everyone. All sales from the Online Galleries will return 10% to the Cultural Arts Center as well.

All Gala attendees were greeted by members of the opening night team.

People mixed and mingled for quite sometime, including Mr. and Mrs. Howington … a major benefactor to the Arts Center.

After some munchies and tour of downstairs, the crowd, including Mr. Halle, another major benefactor to the Arts Center, moved upstairs for the nights’ events.

Packed house! The 135 seat theatre was slam packed with participants!

Much like a wedding, the event started with a “father daughter dance”.

And it quickly moved into a focus on the most beautiful ballerinas from Infinity Ballet.

One of my *favorite* shots.

The Opera Company of NC also gave us a small snipit of their amazing work. Wow. Never liked Opera … or so I thought! This group was amazing!

Syncopated tap dance. Ever heard of it? Not me, but man … she was good!

The event was capped with a ribbon cutting of quite large proportion. 🙂

And finally a big ‘ole check. I want one! 😉

So that was January 10th. January 11th brought new performers, fun for kids and adults and more festivities…

Ever want to learn to draw? That’s part of what the Arts Center will do!

Or … want to act? These guys were in with the Raleigh Little Theatre learning some tricks of the trade. 🙂

A bit later the little ones were entertained by their favorite Trish Miller!

JC Knowles told some stories about Raleigh and Apex that had the entire group laughing until they cried.

The Wake Shakers brought the house down.

WakeMed was a sponsor of the Arts Center and the Gala and Twinkle, its mascot of sorts, made a quick appearance.

These guys were awesome. A big group of seniors all decked out and singing their hearts out!

A bit of highland dancing …

And then some more! Makes me yearn for the trip to Ireland that I failed to take due to learning I was expecting twins. 🙂 Oh well. 😆

The Arts Center boasts a beautiful small Grand piano. It’s sound in the theatre was stunning. Helped a lot to have such a wonderful pianist play it!

And then my favorite group of the night …. the Apex Middle School Jazz Band! Man, it made me miss High School … when I was the pianist in our Jazz band. They started their show with one of my all time favorite — a classic — song (and dang if I can’t remember the name!). Guess I’m getting old. 🙂

And then Broadway hit. Who’d have thought that in a theatre of 135 (though it was again packed to standing room only) there could even be a little bit of broadway. SAS’ Vocal Motion was amazing!

All in all these have been two fantastic days of photography, arts, events, singing, dancing and presentations. Kudos to all the performers … their talent is obvious and boy was it fun to photograph!