Classical musicians are planning benefit concerts and collecting instruments while a country music-affiliated charity is donating $30,000 to help make sure music survives the disastrous floods that hit south Louisiana last month, The Associated Press reports.
A concert today, organized by the New Orleans-based Louisiana Philharmonic and the New Orleans Opera Association, will benefit public school music programs, arts organizations and the Recording Academy’s MusiCares charity.
On Sunday, musicians from New Orleans and Baton Rouge will perform Mozart’s Requiem to raise money for the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
“The Baton Rouge Symphony was so nice to us during the Katrina years. They gave us office space, and they were a godsend to us,” says Jim Atwood, whose tympani were in the basement of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra ‘s auditorium when the storm hit in 2005. “We were happy to be able to do a little thing for them.”
Earlier this week, country music star Kix Brooks announced a $30,000 donation by the Country Music Association-affiliated CMA Foundation, to support music education in flooded areas.
“Whenever you talk about sustainability and making sure that communities have a sense of normalcy, you want to make sure that education is a priority,” CMA Foundation outreach manager Tiffany Kerns says. “And, so, specific to us: We know that music really helps communities thrive.”
In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Amanda Schlegel, an assistant professor of music at the University of Southern Mississippi, is collecting instruments for middle and high school music programs in the Baton Rouge area.
Schlegel says she’s so far collected some flutes, violins and clarinets; a couple of trombones; and a French horn. In addition to band instruments, she’s hoping to find band shoes and stringed instruments, including a cello for 12-year-old Kennedy Morgan of Baton Rouge. Kennedy’s two cellos were destroyed in 5 feet of water, says her mother, Dana Morgan.
“We put the cello up high but never in a million years did we imagine we’d get as much water as we did,” Morgan says.
The Associated Press has the full story. Meanwhile, organizers of the Louisiana Rising benefit concert for flood relief that was broadcast live from the Baton Rouge River Center on Monday say the show netted more than $800,000 for the American Red Cross Louisiana Flood Relief.
