Topaz Museum Hosts Benefit Concert with Mark Inouye at the San Francisco Conservatory

Sparano + Mooney Architecture is pleased to help support the Topaz Museum and Education Center in its fundraising effort. In this season of summer travel, if you find yourself in the Bay Area we invite you to join virtuoso trumpeter Mark Inouye from the San Francisco Symphony and the Friends of Topaz for an evening of Mark Inouye + Friends in Concert. The event will be held on Sunday, July 10th, 2016 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

For several years, Mark has been on a journey – to discover all he could about his father, Takara Steve Inouye. This path led him to the Topaz Internment Camp outside of Delta, Utah, where his father was incarcerated during World War II with 11,000 others. His father’s only crime? Being Japanese American. Thanks to Mark’s generosity and commitment to raising awareness of this injustice, all proceeds from the benefit concert will be donated to help create new exhibits at the Topaz Museum.

Designed by Sparano + Mooney Architecture, the Topaz Museum and Education Center is a 4,000 SF facility that provides information and interpretation regarding the thousands of Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the nearby Topaz Camp during WWII. The Museum and Education Center helps prepare and encourage visitors to tour the Topaz Internment Camp site, located approximately 16 miles northwest of the Museum – it is located along Delta’s Main Street (Highway 50/6), providing maximum visibility for those traveling through.

The modern museum includes an exhibit space with interpretive displays, cutting-edge computer technology installations, artifacts and art from the Camp, a historically-accurate re-creation of one of the barracks, images of the Camp, and historic perspectives to engage and educate the public about the internment. In addition, the Museum also offers an education/orientation space, a secure curatorial storage area and an outdoor courtyard that includes a restored Recreation hall structure from the original Camp. Though the Camp was shuttered after WWII, the site became a National Historic Landmark in 2007, and evidence of its existence still remains – gardens, a gridded road network, walkways, concrete foundations, artifacts and other remnants that remind visitors of the injustice once inflicted. One of the primary goals of the project was to provide a secure home for some of these artifacts – the Museum’s collection comprises over 1,000 items – and to preserve the collection for future generations.

Mark Inouye is generously helping to advance the knowledge and understanding of the Topaz Camp and Museum, and we hope you will consider attending this important event. A pre-concert talk with Mark will begin at 6pm, and the show will begin at 7pm. The first set of symphonic music will be followed by an intermission, then a set of jazz. Finally, there will be a VIP Reception for Benefactor ticket holders at 9pm. Musicians Keisuke Nakagoshi, In Sun Jang, Jeffrey Budin, Brad Buethe, Mark Izu, Jeff Mars and Wendy Hanamura will join Mark in this musical storytelling event.

For more information, and to purchase tickets to the concert, please visit https://friendsoftopazfundraiser.com/ and http://www.topazmuseum.org/