WHAT is the collective noun for a gathering of financiers, we wondered as salivated at the lavish hospitality (rolling waves of crisp seafood and chilled wine from the Grey Door) at the Citibank reception for the New York Philharmonic at the NCH on Thursday night. A "safe", or perhaps an "abacus", suggested my partner. After a glass or two, we settled for "an interest of bankers".
Convergence of interest was certainly in the air, as high art and high finance mingled without any apparent conflict. The NYP's Kurt Masur must, in the course of his distinguished career in the former East Germany, have officiated at many events where the interests of American bankers would not have been appreciated, but on Thursday the qualities which almost propelled him to the presidency of that country as its old regime crumbled were very much in evidence.
Radiating a combination of powerful authority and gentle charm that many politicians would kill for, he spoke warmly, almost in the same breath, of Citibank's sponsorship and the "boom in Irish cultural life, in this nation of singers". Then he slipped away across the road to the Conrad Hotel with Seamus Heaney, hoping toe persuade the poet to write a piece for composition celebrating the turn of the millennium. Before he left he gave Aidan Brady, Citibank's Irish chief executive, a baseball cap with a suitably gung ho entrepreneurial slogan. "Wherever we play, we win".
Most of those present agreed that the NYP had indeed won on the night in question. A fair indication of the response was the sight of Colm O Briain, Arts Minister Michael D. Higgins's usually retiring adviser, giving the orchestra a solo standing ovation well after the rest of the audience had retaken their seats.