“This is a little-known secret: Music has always made me cry,” the chairman of the Juilliard School’s Centennial Gala, Dan Lufkin, said at the event Monday.

There was plenty to provoke his tears, with a concert program that included Puccini, Verdi, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff.

But he also had plenty to smile about: The party, which he and his wife, Cynthia, spent more than a year planning, raised $5.5 million, with 900 people attending.

The brightest smile, though, belonged to 13-year-old pianist Peng Peng Gong. Momentarily freed from a crush of socialites offering congratulations, he told me his performance was “the best I ever felt.”

And how did he feel just then, moments after Muffie Potter Aston told him he was “amazing” and Lisa Schiff and Grace Hightower told him he was “brilliant”?

“I’m hungry,” he said (he’d eaten rice before the concert). “My parents are somewhere in the lobby. We’re going over to the dinner.”

As much as the evening was about the institution’s history – its expansion into drama and dance from its original focus on music, its move to Lincoln Center from its longtime home on West 122nd Street, its talented roster of faculty and alumni – it was about Peng Peng, a pre-college student, and the promise of the future.

Or as alumna Renee Fleming put it during the concert, “It’s the future that is always so present here.”

The future does loom large as the school closes in on its $300 million fund-raising goal for the Juilliard Second Century Fund, with $229 million committed. The money is helping to underwrite centennial programs (47 commissions!), the school’s remodeling (part of Lincoln Center’s redevelopment project), financial aid, and other school expenses.

For now, Mr. and Mrs. Lufkin can only dream about their children attending Juilliard. Aster is 6 months old. Schuyler, who is 8, plays the recorder. Family history indicates strong musical appreciation skills and a degree of aptitude. Mrs. Lufkin, for example, played the flute, piano, and guitar in her youth. Her favorite piece for the guitar was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

Most guests weren’t shy about their lack of performing talent. “I had the good sense to go into another line of work,” author Ronald Chernow, who played clarinet and the tenor saxophone in his teenage years, said. Linda Fairstein took dance lessons before developing her talents as a prosecutor and writer.

Some guests still play. “Wipeout” by the Safaris is Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s favorite song to perform. He is a drummer.

Juilliard Council member Elizabeth Hemmerdinger told me she plays three instruments. “The telephone, my husband, and my credit cards,” she said.

The dinner was held under a tent on the North Plaza, a space dominated by the reflecting pool, but not on this night. Beige Astroturf covered it up except for a small portion around the sculptures. “This is the closest we have ever been to the Henry Moores,” architect Elizabeth Diller said. She and her husband, Ricardo Scofidio (who plays the double bass), are the designers of Lincoln Center’s redevelopment plan.

Part of the plan for Juilliard is to create more spaces where students can gather, including a campus green. At the moment, according to recent graduate Elizabeth Konopska, the hangout is “Harry’s Burrito happy hour, 4 to 7, after rehearsal.” At her side to confirm it was choreographer Adam Houghland, a fellow alumnus.

agordon@nysun.com

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