Adrian College musicians host concert to benefit Haiti
Adrian College alumni and students organized a benefit concert to help rebuild the New Victorian School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Photo by Jon Wittkop)
Last Friday, Adrian College hosted a benefit concert in Dawson Auditorium for the country of Haiti. All proceeds went to help rebuild the New Victorian School in Port-au-Prince.
AC Alum Erick Swanson (‘07), in conjunction with Tom Hodgman, associate professor of music, and Cecilia Johnson, lecturer of music, was responsible for the concert and much of the preparation that went into it. The admittance cost was $10 at the door.
“I organized a concert in January which raised close to $1000. I wanted to do a second concert so I approached Dr. Hodgman and asked if I could organize an alumni concert,” Swanson said in an e-mail. “He connected me with string instructor Cecilia Johnson who was simultaneously organizing a concert of her own. We decided to join forces and create one massive concert.”
The concert was split in two halves. The first half consisted of current AC students and the second half featured alumni, including Makenzie Fader (‘09), Gerianne Ditto (‘07), and Swanson. Between the two halves, there was an intermission with refreshments donated by Sodexo. Pieces preformed included show tunes, instrumental arrangements, gospel music and songs in foreign languages.
The concert audience and performers were not limited to music majors. Some students assisted with taking chairs and music stands on and off stage and other duties that made the concert run more smoothly.
Because there was so little time to prepare for the concert, no rehearsals were held. The performers were asked to choose pieces that were in “their standard list of repertoire” and that required little rehearsal, Swanson said.
In addition to the concert at AC, there was a, encore performance at the First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Mich. where Swanson works.
“That concert [featured] many of the Adrian alumni, some faculty from the school I teach at, and several current students from the college like Steven Rolph and Brittany Ward, who are from the area,” Swanson said.
Romel Joseph, founder of the New Victorian School, was a colleague of Johnson’s when they were attending the University of Cincinnati College Conservatively of Music. According to Johnson, Joseph is a Haiti native who has been blind since a young age. After attaining his Bachelors degree, Joseph went on to get his Masters from Julliard School on a Fulbright program. After that, Joseph and his wife went to Haiti to start the New Victorian School.
According to Johnson, the devastation from the earthquake is not the first the New Victorian School has faced. Ten years to the day before the earthquake, the school burned. Johnson assisted in fundraising to help rebuild the school after the fire. Because there’s no insurance in Haiti, Johnson said, they have to start from scratch every time the school faces a disaster like the fire or the earthquake. And Joseph didn’t just loose the school to the earthquake. His wife and the child she was pregnant with were killed and Joseph’s legs and left hand were broken.
“For a violinist, that’s devastating,” Johnson said.
Even with all he’s lost personally, Johnson said he’s impatient to get out of the hospital and start rebuilding his school and working with the orphaned children in Haiti. That Joseph was able to soldier on like he has is incredible to Johnson.
“He’s a brilliant person with a brilliant spirit,” Johnson said.
The highlight of the night for Swanson was when Joseph called and greeted the audience.
“It was really cool to hear from him,” Swanson said. “He insisted on calling, even though he had a major surgery only a matter of hours before.”
Children at the New Victorian School learn to play stringed instruments “which is unusual for Haiti” according to Johnson.
In addition to learning to play music, the children learn to speak English and French along with their native Creole. The elite in Haiti speak French, and Johnson said the children are being given every opportunity to enter elite society. Johnson had the opportunity to visit the school five years ago and thought “the school is good and the curriculum is awesome.”
Johnson is impressed with the way AC has managed to pull together a concert to benefit the New Victorian School in such a short time. She said it’s an example of the closeness of the music department and the generosity of the school as a whole.
“This college has an incredible spirit that I’ve never seen,” Johnson said.
According to Hodgman, this sort of action in a time of need is a college-wide phenomenon.
Between the two concerts, around $3500 was raised for the school. Also, according to Swanson, Shar Violin supply donated new uniforms to the school.