If You Go* What: Chattanooga Bach Choir’s “Escape to Rio” Mardi Gras party.* When and where: Monday, 5-6:30 p.m. at Sheraton Read House, 827 Broad St.; 7 p.m. at Walden Club, 633 Chestnut St.* Admission: $100.* Reservations: Due today.* Phone: 877-9767, 510-0333.* E-mail: mardigrasmonday@yahoo.com.* Web site: www.chattanoogabachchoir.org.
Rio de Janeiro’s famed Carnival is under way through Tuesday, but you don’t have to fly to Brazil to catch some Mardi Gras fun.
Chattanooga Bach Choir is sponsoring “Escape to Rio” at two downtown locations Monday. The Mardi Gras party warms up with cocktail hour at the Sheraton Read House at 5 p.m. About 6:30, revelers will form a street parade to strut down Chestnut Street to the Walden Club, where the real fun gets under way at 7 p.m. (Guests do not have to attend the party at the Sheraton Read House to attend the event in the Walden Club.)
According to Dabney Carden, choir administrator, the Walden Club is where the pre-Lenten fundraiser “will pit fiesta and fermentation against the frigidity of February.”
Mardi Gras Queen Helen Stout and King Neil Hammitt, with the aid of emcee Terry Coggins, will open the festivities. Guests will be encouraged to remain masked until after the toast. The best mask will win a prize.
The choir will sing a short piece before guests are served a four-course dinner by chef Jeff Walker. Dinner music will be provided by vocalist Kathy Tugman and the Dave Walters Trio.
After watching the moves of a Latin dance exhibition by Fred Astaire Studios, guests can take to the dance floor. The party will conclude with an auction.
“It is a tremendous amount of fun every year,” said Mary Ellen Meloan, Bach Choir board president. “It captures the Mardi Gras spirit.”
Meloan said the event is almost sold out. Reservations are required and are due today.
The annual party is a fundraiser for the Bach Choir, which is observing its 25th anniversary this year.