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July 22, 2009
For as long as I can remember we have had a Shofar in our house. Kind of an odd thing to have, the horn of a Ram, an ancient instrument of Jewish music, but someone gave it to me years ago and I had it mounted over the fireplace, in a place of honor next to my Didgeridoo, Rain Stick and Native American Flute.
 This Rosh Hashanah for some reason I was inspired to try to blow the Shofar at our holiday dinner. I knew I could get a sound out of it (I have played the trumpet since I was a kid) but I did not remember the actual tones and rhythms of the “calls.” We live in an amazing time, where one can simply go to YouTube and type in “how to blow the Shofar.” There I watched a short video clip of a rabbi blowing the horn, explaining the calls and what they signified. What a fantastic addition to our holiday gathering, and what a wonderful way to bring in the New Year.
July 17, 2009
 I am always excited to introduce people to the wonderful world of Starlight Orchestras! This organization was originally created as a personal challenge to see how “good it could get,” how high could we raise the bar, how much fun could we have at work, how much integrity could we bring, and just how much could we transform the image of a “wedding band?”
We were dedicated to it, we held to our ideals and we never compromised on the quality. Starlight became an opportunity to recruit the most exciting performers, the “heaviest” musicians, the most innovative creative team. It became a forum for our vision of uplifting, inspiring, creative positive energy, and working with people in a healing capacity. (And you thought this was a mere music company!) We spent the first few years on the phone with perspective clients busting the myths of our industry (i.e. that band size should be in direct proportion to the number of guests at a party). We explained over and over why they needed to raise the music budget for their parties if they wanted something spectacular. It worked! People loved our concept, the bands were incomparable, and we got rave reviews. We were delighted to hear people saying, “If you want the best, call Starlight!” And this, I am proud to say, has been the constant thread throughout our twenty year history.
The best part of our journey has been the joy we experience when we get on stage with our fellow performers and create the magic that excites and electrifies our audiences. The explosive energy generated between the guests and the performers elevates the party to the heights for which Starlight is famous. We are proud to be part of people’s happiest moments, we participate in the most important days of their lives, we facilitate their celebrations. We set the stage for people to share love and joy. This is truly thrilling and we feel blessed to spend our lives involved in this process.
Over the years we continued to enhance our product, and we developed a strong reputation for having the best bands in the New York market. Soon we began traveling all over the country performing at charity balls and providing music for high level corporate events. We found that our performance was as entertaining and as well-received as many of the headline acts that performed along side of us. The natural progression was to spin off a division called “The Starlight Experience,” which is a large and dynamic ensemble that has all of the “bells and whistles” of a headline show, yet still plays all of the favorite repertoire that our audiences want to hear throughout their special events. “The Starlight Experience” performs for many celebrity parties, political events, as well as private functions all over the globe, and is geared to be an alternative to headline entertainment. (www.starlightexperience.com)
There is so much to write about the world of Starlight Orchestras; our history and development, our philosophies, the behind-the -scenes, as well as our wealth of knowledge about creating amazing events. I look forward to sharing these things, and I welcome your comments and feedback. Please let me know if there is something you would like us to write about in future articles. For now, I wish you peace, love, joy and great music!
-Valerie Romanoff
July 14, 2009
We are so excited to be joining the exciting world of business networking and web marketing. We can’t wait to share our experiences, our knowledge of the private event industry, helpful tips on music and parties, photos, music clips, video clips, and everything else that will be included in these pages. As we learn more about the process of sharing information in this format, we will grow and develop in ways that we have not yet conceived of. Thank you for taking this journey with us, and we welcome your comments and feedback along the way.
Peace, Love and Music,
Valerie Romanoff
CEO Starlight Orchestras
July 12, 2009
 Included as a feature article in the Summer 2003 issue of New York Observer:
“The summer always makes you think of festive parties and nothing makes a celebration more vivacious than the STARLIGHT ORCHESTRAS under the stars in the Hamptons. Valerie Romanoff, founder/CEO, and her bevy of glamorous bandleaders, have raised the bar in evening enterainment. THe Starlight women have tapped into the zeitgeist and brought their ochestras to the top of the New York social scene. Starlight had entertained for some of society’s most exciting events, including: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones celebrity-studded wedding; private parties for entertainment mogul Clive Davis and singer Jon Bon Jovi; and many Fortune 500 companies at corporate events for Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citibank, among others. Whether for a wedding, charity ball, gala or Bar Mitzvah, Starlight will deliver the dazzle that makes any event shine.”
 Included in the Rush and Molloy section of Daily News, September 18, 2003
“Meanwhile, the rumor spread yesterday that Affleck’s former flame Gwyneth Paltrow might wed Coldplay rocker Chris Martin this weekend on Long Island, But friends say Gwynnie is attending the wedding of Julia Cuddihy, her buddy since their days at the Spence School. Gwyn is springing for the band, Starlight Orchestra.
 Included in an In Style Magazine article covering the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones wedding:
“Afterward, guest could enjoy cocktails and admire the 10-tier cake on display in the foyer until horns called everyone into the Grand Ballroom, where the Starlight Orchestra was playing. Mr. and Mrs. Kirk Douglas were introduced, and then came a surprise: Gladys Knight performed “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” for their first dance, “The Way We Were” for a dance with their parents, and then four other favorites.”
 Included in an article on the City Harvest Annual Gala of New York Social Diary:
“Harrison Ford was honored… He was there with Calista Flockhart. Ford has been giving his time to City Harvest in the past year and a half. Whoopi Goldberg is another dedicated supporter. The Starlight Orchestra is another big production, a show in itself. Musicians with a quartet of vocalists performing and doing backup for a series of singers who do everything from Sinatra to hard disco and do it well, really well. The dance floor was jammed, the joint was jumping.”
 In a feature article and interview on wedding music, 2004 issue of Wedding Style Magazine:
“A band that gets family and friends up and dancing will be fondly recalled for a lifetime,” says Michael Lerich of the Chicago-based Michael Lerich Orchestra.
“The success of an event, and what makes a good bandleader, is being able to create an event with balanaced components,” agrees Valerie Romanoff, CEO of Starlight Orchestras in New York City. Of course, crowd appeal can’t be judged completely in advance. “It’s also intuitive reading, like poetry in motion as the event unfolds”, says Romanoff. “It’s not a concert; it’s interactive, a give-and-take between what the orchestra is putting out and what people will respond to”.
 In a feature article by David Patrick Columbia’s in Quest Magazine:
Then one day a friend of mine invited me to lunch at Michael’s with a woman named Valerie Romanoff who had her own orchestra…called The Starlight Orchestras. Oh. Okay.
Now the Starlight Orchestra is doing business with some of the biggest names in New York, indeed, and in the country. They played for the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ wedding, at private parties for Clive Davis and Bon Jovi, for many Fortune 500 companies including Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup as well as charity galas such as City Harvest, Princess Grace Foundation and Society for Memorial-Sloan Kettering.
 Included in the Wedding Special Index in the February 2004 issue of VOGUE magazine as one of the best bands in the country.
July 9, 2009
 A recent piece on wedding budgeting featured our wedding band:
A RIDICULOUSLY GOOD BAND
A ten-piece band from Starlight Orchestras includes a bongo player, horns, fab vocalists, and a string trio. Their blow-your-socks-off client list includes Clive Davis, Jimmy Buffett and Jon Bon Jovi.
We were also featured in The Traditional Wedding:
For the main event, bring in Starlight Orchestras & Productions (212-595-0999). Have them play jazz during cocktails and Continental music during dinner. The groups are ten to fifteen-member orchestras, with four vocalists each, and they can play everything from Frank Sinatra to Beyoncé and the Black-Eyed Peas. Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel asked Starlight to play at their wedding, as did Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
July 3, 2009
 Mentioned in a feature article covering the wedding of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, December 4, 2000 issue of People Magazine:
“No studio could have afforded the cast. Among the 350 guest who witnessed the couple exchanging traditional vows were Jack Nicholson and his date Lara Flynn Boyle, Martha Stewart (talk about pressure to get the decor and the food just right!), Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Anthony Hopkins, Goldie Hawn, whoe came sans longtime love Kurt Russell, and Karl Malden.” “And the fairytale had only begun. And Starlight played dance music.”
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