Youth Symphony Benefit Concert Set

Affiliates of the American Youth Symphony’s 19th annual gala benefit concert will raise funds for the seven free concerts the symphony performs throughout the year at Royce Hall at UCLA.

The benefit concert will be given at 7 p.m. on Feb. 14 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center. American baritone Thomas Hampson, who debuted with the Metropolitan Opera last fall, and film star Burt Lancaster will join the symphony. Mehli Mehta conducts.

Hampson will perform five arias accompanied by AYS; after intermission, the orchestra will perform “Carnival of the Animals” with Lancaster narrating. Tickets for the concert and post-dinner in the Pavilion restaurant are $150 and from $4 to $25 for the concert only.

CELEBRATING $1 MILLION: The Buckley School will applaud the first $1 million for its endowment fund at an “Endowment Celebration Gala” on Feb. 13 in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton.

Gala chairmen Lela Hung and Jan Seligman will tie in the black-tie dinner dance with the school’s 55th anniversary, paying tribute to Evelyn Tobocco, who retired as primary division principal last June, and Jean Strom, former elementary division principal. Their combined tenure was 73 years.

CHAMPAGNE: Joan Quinn and Suzanne Marx of Loyola Marymount University’s Fine Arts Council host a champagne reception Monday for sculptor Claire Falkenstein. It’s a private preview of her show opening Tuesday to the public and continuing through April 9 at the Laband Art Gallery on campus.

First-nighters will hear the sculptor lecture before champagne and dessert. Then they’ll chat with her about recently completed paintings and drawings, eight models for urban commissions and her sculptured jewelry.

CARTIER: Cartier’s chairman Ralph Destino and president Kenneth W. Watson will present Champagne at Cartier on Feb. 10 at Cartier on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The event honors the Committee for the Cartier International Polo Luncheon to celebrate the International Shakespeare Globe Centre.

The Cartier luncheon will be March 5 at the Eldorado Polo Club in Indio in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of York, preceding a challenge polo match between England and the United States.

PREMIERE NIGHT: After researching a legacy of yesteryears, party co-chairmen Cindy Somer and Ollie Lynn have selected the elegantly redecorated Biltmore for their Las Floristas’ Premiere Night on Feb. 6.

It will be the chance to introduce mannequins and florists for the April 22 ball. In a fashion retrospective coordinated by Patricia Merrill, mannequins will model gowns worn during the 50 years of floral fantasias and gowns representative of designers including Irene and Helen Rose. The same evening, ball chairman Barbara Gershon and her co-chairman, Maggie Simms, will announce that Bob Hope will be honorary ball chairman.

DIAMOND EYES: About 70 people around town are wearing a limited edition dinosaur pin with a diamond chip eye. They’re the reward for Diamond Couples, those who have contributed $750 to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Diamond Jubilee Dinosaur Ball on April 23.

The annual ball will celebrate the museum’s 75th anniversary with dinner, dancing and diamonds--the Empress Marie Louise diadem and the Napoleon necklace--on display in the gem vault. The setting will be jungle and the dress code black-tie for $250 sponsors as well as those at $25,000.

MARDI GRAS: Bright invitations shaped like masks announce the Volunteer League of the San Fernando Valley Mardi Gras ’88 party Saturday at the Los Angeles Registry in Universal City. Chairman Sally Green chairs the various contests and the lavish late-night supper and dancing.

She has much help from Lois Bock, Deborah Diamond, Gail Schiffner, Marion Soady, Penny Meyer, Marcia Jones, Linda Ellis, Pat Onestinghel, Lea Osborne, Linda Prinn, Maryann Rinsch, Colette Udall and Carol Washburn. Proceeds will finance the league’s community projects--distributing wardrobes to about 2,000 schoolchildren, providing choral music for the elderly, acquainting victims with court procedures and teaching positive attitudes toward the disabled.

PRIVATE DINNERS: Bernard F. Combemale, chairman of the board of Trusthouse Forte Hotels, owns some of the best hotels in the world--the Ritz in Madrid, the Plaza Athenee and George V in Paris, Hyde Park and Brown’s and Grosvenor House in London. “But, I’m not very well known here,” he lamented at a private dinner for about 60 at Cafe Four Oaks on North Beverly Glen. “I want to know people.”

With the Queensbay Hilton in Long Beach and the Viscount hotels at LAX and now TraveLodge, Combemale is expanding in Southern California. His niece, Priscilla Woolworth, escorted by Cassian Elwes, joined him in the dinner, and among guests were Mike and Lacy Gage, Collis Conway, Jerry Polone with Marlene Morris, Henri and Sandy Bollinger, Nancy Dinsmore with Herb Philbrook, Mimi Harris, Seth Baker, Geoff Miller and Jeanne Fond, Patty and Tommy Skouras, Marty Pasetta, Jerry Magnin and Desmond O’Mahony.