Soprano Camille Zamora has organized a small concert at a hospital for her friend who had died of AIDS in order to raise fund for charity. At the same time, she wanted people to be aware of what AIDS is. Monica Yunus has held charity concerts for needy neighbors since when she was young. These two artists have got to know each other while studying for their graduate degree at Julliard School of Music, New York. In 2006, they formed a nonprofit organization, “Sing for Hope” in order to share their music and to donate their talent to society. This organization went soon viral, and a lot of professional musicians in New York who were interested in talent donation joined them. There are more than 700 professional musicians in this organization at the moment.

Shared time for healing and communicating through diverse hope projects

People in need of help, people who want to help them, and artists are connected through “Sing for Hope”. Above all, their social participation and volunteer activity are based on “visiting them”. They have been trying to reach a helping hand using their musical talent to local communities which were in need of healing and education through music and arts. A variety of programs which allow voluntary participation are going on as part of the project “Sing for Hope”. Three programs are currently running at a school, a hospital, and a local community facility.

Art U: Targets of Art U are public schools and students. Artists visit local public schools where the majority of students is from low-income families, and teach them art and music so that they could gain confidence and positive thinking. The art classes are given either during regular class hours or after school under the participation of volunteer artist. The course is composed of lecture and practice. During the lecture, students learn about various American artists including Marian Anderson and Pete Seeger who have strived to pour their affluent and positive energy into the society. They also have chance to hear about diverse case studies on music education in other countries.

Healing Arts: Hospitals and elderly care facilities are kind of lonely space indeed. Psychological pain caused by isolation from a family is bigger than a physical pain to those who have been on the bed for a long time due to their illness. Volunteer artists visit them and hold musical or artistic performances so that they could help them take back their hope and spiritual enrichment. The performances take place at a lobby or beside the bed at a patient’s room. The artists have been trying to help those who had to be neglected or rejected because of their physical restriction to recover their psychological stability and peace in their mind by using various methods and performances.

Community Arts: It is a public social project sponsored by a lot of volunteers and sponsors. As part of its programs, a music festival “Pop-Up Pianos” took place on five different streets in New York last year. During the festival, a piano was installed on a pavement so that any citizen could play it as an amateur artist. Pop-Up Pianos is a program which allows as many people to enjoy music and art as possible through artistic performances given by volunteer artists in open space. Since it was performed in an open place, a lot of musicians and artists saw the performances and decided to join the group as a volunteer. Thanks to passionate participation of these volunteers, “Sing for Hope” has been generating more and more positive energy day by day.

Written by Joan Hee-Jhong MYUNG (Project Manager in New York)