Melodic Impact

This Saturday Grace and I are playing piano in a concert that she and her friend Jenny organized to raise money for Special Love, a Washington, D.C. area organization that helps children with cancer. We're playing a 4-hand/1-piano duet of Under the Sea, and I'm also playing the Fantasie Impromptu by Frederic Chopin.

Here are the details:

"Melodic Impact" A Spring Concert for Kids with Cancer Saturday, April 28th, 6:00-8:00 pm (reception follows) Mt. Olivet U.M. Church - 1500 N. Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA

After a 5 year stretch in which my piano gathered dust in the corner of my living room, it has been wonderful practicing for the concert and knowing what it feels like to be immersed in music again, although I remain pretty nervous about the performance. Particularly nervous about playing through the performance induced hand sweating that will inevitably occur. For those lucky ones who aren't afflicted by "hyperhidrosis" (and I gather this is the majority of the population), it like a virtuous cycle without the virtuous part: nerves cause sweat, sweat causes nerves, repeat.

Grace and Jenny have done an amazing job putting everything together and have really shown that people who work hard and believe in a good cause create their own luck. Planning a benefit concert was just an idea floated between the three of us last fall, and now through their hard work we are one week away from the concert and have hundreds of dollars in in-kind donations for an auction, a roster of performers that includes world touring musicians and Kennedy-center veterans, and a corporate sponsor to handle the advertising expenses. It is inspiring to be around people who don't just keep good ideas in their heads and actually act upon them. So if you happen to be in the area and see this, come out and have a good time.