Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York
hosted by American Foundation for Bulgaria
present
A Conversation with Liane McAllister
BCENY 2025 Gala Honoree
Thursday, October 23rd, 2025 | 6:30 PM
Bulgarian Consulate General in New York
121 East 62nd Street, New York City, NY
Join us for an evening of conversation with our 2025 Opening Gala Honoree, BCENY Advisory Board Member and dear friend Liane McAllister. We will start with some music and then we will get to know more about Liane’s life and accomplishments. We will end with an informal reception. This event is free of charge but you still need to reserve free tickets below.
About Liane McAllister
A native New Yorker, Liane has been passionate about music and all the arts since early childhood. As a five-year-old, she remembers listening spell-bound to monthly chamber music concerts in the Park Avenue home of Mrs. Rosalie Leventritt, sponsor to brilliant young musicians such as Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Eugene Istomin, and Itzak Perlman.
Liane’s parents, Betty and Donald McAllister, were sophisticated New Yorkers who encouraged Liane and her brother to engage fully in city life. Her Dad, a business magazine publisher and gifted entrepreneur was an avid reader and sportsman. Her mother Betty Myers was a soprano coloratura who had studied first at Sarah Lawrence College, then at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. While raising her family, Liane’s Mom studied with a well-known coach, and recorded rare music with a tenor, for television archives. Liane’s mother was also a dedicated vocal programmer for Young Audiences, an organization dedicated to bringing the arts to underserved public schools. Through her exposure to YA, Liane came to fully appreciate the tremendous impact of the arts in young peoples’ lives.
After graduating from The Brearley School in New York, Liane studied for her BA in English at Vassar College, her Masters in French through New York University in France and a second Masters in English at Teachers College, Columbia University. Liane first moved to Chicago to teach French for two years at the Chicago Latin School. New York, however, drew her back to spend the next twenty years as a feature writer, columnist and seminar presenter, representing her family’s magazine Gifts & Decorative Accessories, at national shows, and upon invitation, assignments in Europe and the Far East.
In 1999, Liane’s family’s trade magazine company Geyer-McAllister Publications, founded in 1877 by her great-uncle Andrew Geyer, was acquired by Reed-Elsevier, a multi-national communications company. After the sale, Liane embarked on a new career as an art licensing agent, presenting her artists’ designs for reproduction and adaptation into two and three-dimensional products. Liane’s art business lasted about 8 years until an economic downturn slowed the sales of artworks to manufacturers and retailers.
After wrapping up her art licensing business, Liane joined the French-American Aid for Children of New York. During her twelve-year tenure at FAAFC she organized the annual Christmas auction fundraiser at the French Consulate, created new editorials for FAAFC’s charity beneficiaries, reviewed grant proposals and organized a comprehensive Child Health webinar series targeted to mainstream and under-served families.
In 2003, Liane married Sigourney Bond Romaine, also a native New Yorker and a talented tenor who sings in the 100-year-old Blue Hill Troupe of New York, renowned for its fabulous productions of Gilbert and Sullivan. Ron also graces the stage of the 150-year-old men’s chorus, The University Glee Club (UGC). In the past five years, Liane and Ron have travelled abroad to participate in concerts with the Yale Alumni Glee Club in Vietnam, Singapore, Greece, Puerto Rico and the Czech Republic.
In 2011 Liane was thrilled to discover the Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York through her piano teacher Lora Tchekoratova. Upon attending her first BCENY concert, Liane immediately offered to help and has been on the Advisory Board ever since. She has thoroughly enjoyed all BCENY activities from organizing auctions to building concert attendance, underwriting concerts, reviewing concert proposals, and becoming close friends with board members. Through the advisory board, Liane met Pavlina Dokovska, founder of BCENY and chairman of the Mannes piano department. Out of this friendship, Liane had the amazing opportunity to collaborate on three New School multi-arts events: Jean Cocteau et Les Six, A Celebration of Women in the Arts and Victory in Suffrage, and Cinderella. So this long-lasting love of the arts keeps enriching Liane’s life.