AMBER MATTICE
Life & Arts Editor
With all of the talent across majors on Fredonia’s campus, there is always an event going on to showcase them. On March 5 at 1 p.m. in Diers Recital Hall, a concert will be held that stands out among the rest due to its purpose.
In response to the recent ban on immigration set into motion by the Trump administration, some of Fredonia’s students are banding together to raise money and awareness to benefit refugees.
“I think with any career you kind of feel a sense of like ‘Well, how can I do my best, how can I help,’ and being a musician, it’s so easy to stick to our ivory tower and not worry about the world, but this is just so important and with everything that is happening I think we have to,” said senior music performance major Hannah Bleasdale.
Bleasdale, along with her quartet, pitched the idea to professors and the School of Music and decided that it wouldn’t be too difficult to put together and felt that they didn’t have a choice because it was something that needed to happen, one way or another.
The Refugee Benefit Concert will showcase a mix of jazz and classical music performed by approximately 22 students from a quartet, a jazz ensemble and a cello choir as well as various other groups within the School of Music.
All proceeds obtained from the concert will be split between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Jewish Community Center in Buffalo, which helped to relocate many of the refugees in Buffalo last year.
Bleasdale’s own experience while studying abroad last year in Germany, which has taken in an incredibly large number of Syrian refugees, has played an important role in her inspiration to make this concert happen.
“I was on my way home in February for a short break, going to the Berlin airport and I found myself sitting next to a Syrian refugee on the train. His English was great and we started talking … and he showed me his passport and it looks just like ours in a lot of ways,” Bleasdale said. “He was going to see his brother who lived in Berlin [and had] for a long time at this point and we started talking about my American heritage and I showed him my passport and he said, ‘That’s the dream.’ That really spoke to me … For the good or bad that America has done, his overall impression was just that we have it really good and we definitely do. So I think that is my biggest inspiration for wanting to protect their right to pursue that dream.”
Another student who has played a large role organizing the concert is Andrea Velasquez, a senior music education and violin performance major. Velasquez’s personal experiences also inspired her to make the event happen.
“I can’t say I have direct experiences with refugees [but] both of my parents are immigrants from Colombia. They came to the U.S. looking for a way to escape the drug-war and violence that had taken place in Colombia at the time. They did this so that they could raise a family in a safe place. However, they didn’t know how to speak any English, they didn’t have any family members in the U.S. and nothing was familiar to them,” Velasquez said. “Today, they have two steady jobs, two successful and healthy children and a comfortable lifestyle. My parents were able to take the opportunity of starting a new life because the U.S. helped provide that for them.”
Bleasdale will be telling her story at the concert as well as giving information about Buffalo and its part in supporting refugees.
Many members of the administration have been very vocal about being against the immigration ban and it was the school’s courage to speak out about this that encouraged Bleasdale and other students participating in the concert to make a political statement against the ban through music on campus.
“I think the powerful thing about music is not just that it speaks but that it gathers people,” said Bleasdale.
The hope is that benefit concerts like this one can be held for other issues in society like the Dakota Access Pipeline and many others and that this will not be a one time thing at Fredonia.
The suggested donation amount is $5 for students and $10 for community members.