By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Tea Yun Chow, Peter Tran, Michele Tam converse at a Toast to Tchaikovsky. (Philip Groshong photo) | ZOOM |

No promises, but the principals behind Sunday night's ground-breaker of a party at Riverbend are all pretty sure it's going to happen again. Sooner, rather than later. And more than once.

The affair, a Toast to Tchaikovsky, spinning off of the Cincinnati Symphony's all-Tchaikovsky program at Riverbend, was a joint cocktail party/meet 'n' greet thrown by the young professionals groups of five major arts outfits - the symphony's CSOEncore!, the opera's CultureBuzz, the Art Museum's Renaissance Society, the Ballet's Bravo and the Taft Museum's Club 316.

Which is to say it was a wildly eclectic group of twenty-, thirty- and fortysomethings in everything from shorts to jeans to silk and satin party clothes, all under a big tent at the entrance to Riverbend. It was a freebie, admission included with the price of the concert ticket, with free food (Honey Baked Ham, Luxury Sweets, Chipotle and Wild Oats) and a cash bar.

Oh, and a lot of talk about where to go after the concert (Main Street was holding the edge), hot spots for weekday happy hours (Hyde Park's Beluga was the leader there), and the must-try restaurant of the moment (Cafe Istanbul at Newport on the Levee).

And while the crowd wasn't enormous - about 150 or so - it was enough of a success for CSO Encore chair Tim Giglio to tell the crowd it was "the first of a lot of these things."

Judging by the applause he got, the crowd agreed.

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E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com