“If Music Be the Food…”, the concert series benefiting Rochester’s Foodlink, will conclude its sixth season on Friday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 25 Westminster Rd., in Rochester.
The concert will open with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number Four, featuring Eastman School of Music faculty members Bonita Boyd and Anne Harrow, flutes, and Renée Jolles, violin, with an ensemble of Eastman students. Thye will be followed by a performance with special guest artist Grammy-Award winning violist Kim Kashkashian. She will lead Eastman student violists in Bartok Duos arranged for multiple violas. The concert will conclude with the Brahms G Major String Sextet, performed by the Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet with Carol Rodland, viola, and Keiko Ying, cello.
The mission of “If Music Be the Food…” is to increase awareness and support for the hungry in the community, to share beautiful music with the community, and to teach music students the importance of utilizing their art for service in their communities. Members of the Eastman faculty, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, other local professional musicians, distinguished international guests, and Eastman students join together and donate their time and talents for these concerts. All participants volunteer their services and pay their own costs, so that all proceeds can go to the hungry via Foodlink. No tickets are sold for the concerts; rather, audience members are asked to bring non-perishable food items or cash donations for Foodlink as the price of admission. The first two concerts of season six garnered more than $2000 and nearly 600 pounds of food for Foodlink. “If Music Be the Food…” was created in 2009 by Carol Rodland, Professor of Viola at the Eastman School of Music. Dr. Robert Poovey, Director of Music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and Peter DuBois, Director of Music at Third Presbyterian Church, are invaluable partners, both musically and administratively, in this endeavor.
The success of “If Music Be the Food…” has inspired other prominent musicians in the United States to create initiatives based on this concept in their own communities, including “If Music Be the Food… Tampa”, “If Music Be the Food…Tucson”, “If Music Be the Food…” at Grace Church in New York City, and “Music For Food” in Boston.
“If Music Be the Food…” will begin its seventh season of concerts on October 18, 2015 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. For further information, please visit www.ifmusicbethefood.com and like on Facebook.
Foodlink is a regional food hub and the Feeding America food bank serving Allegany, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates Counties. Foodlink’s operations target the root causes of hunger by distributing food to a network of human service agencies, serving meals through its commercial kitchen, and offering more than 30 food-related programs. In 2014, Foodlink distributed over 18 million pounds of food—including 3.6 million pounds of produce, offered more than 200 nutrition education courses, and created new access points for healthy foods in underserved communities. Foodlink’s innovative approach directly addresses health disparities related to food insecurity. Learn more about Foodlink’s mission to end hunger and to leverage the power of food to build a healthier community at www.foodlinkny.org.