Posted by: ldonaldson
on Nov 11, 2011
New This Year!
Join Bread & Roses Holiday Sing-Along Chorus
And Bring Good Cheer To Our Isolated Audiences in December!
Bread & Roses is sponsoring a holiday sing-along for several of our facility audiences with a chorus of volunteer singers co-led by singers Claudia Russell and Marian Hubler.
Anyone who enjoys singing holiday songs is welcome to participate. Each program will be approximately 45 minutes to an hour. If you interested in being part of the group, you can do one show or all, which will be held in the East Bay, San Francisco and Marin.
Posted by: ldonaldson
on Aug 16, 2011
OIGC Director, Terrance Kelly takes a turn at the microphone.
Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir -- their name says it all. Buddhists, Christians, Jews and others join their voices to sing traditional and contemporary Black Gospel music. Many races and ethnicities blend into one beautiful chorus. Residents of Crossroads Homeless Shelter in Oakland were engulfed by the powerful sound that filled their dining hall during a recent Bread & Roses concert there. Some laughed, some cried as songs of trials and faith touched their hearts. “Never Alone,” “All I Need,” and upon request “Amazing Grace” buoyed the spirits of folks facing a hard time in their lives.
Volunteer host Barb Withers who attended the show wrote, “There was a shared energy in the room and it just kept encircling everyone with love and strength. It was hard to believe how much the music filled the room, and as it did, more and more of the audience stood smiling, clapping and singing to the inspiring music.”
After the show, a young choir member said that she was especially happy to be working with Bread & Roses. She had been inspired by seeing shows while attending a high school for students with special needs. She was now able to give back to the organization that gave to her.
OIGC has been blessing Bread & Roses audiences since 1990, performing regularly in detention centers, rehab facilities and shelters.
by Carolyn Gauthier, Program Director
Photos by Peter Merts
Posted by: ldonaldson
on Jul 08, 2011
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Having written songs recorded by Emmylou Harris and Joe Cocker, Marshall Chapman is very plugged in to the songwriting socket. Her styles range from Alternative Country to Rock 'n Roll, and her intelligent humor pervades all of her writing including her books. While in the Bay Area recently to promote her new book, They Came to Nashville on West Coast Live, she performed her first institutional concert for Bread & Roses.
On June 19, 2011 Marshall shared songs and stories with the men and women working on their sobriety at New Bridge Foundation in Berkeley. "Music and 12-step programs saved my life," she told them. Songs about her life before, during and after recovery (from substance abuse) were met with great enthusiasm and empathy. "Why Can't You Be Like Other Girls" told of how she didn't fit the mold growing up in South Carolina. "Goodbye Forever" chronicled her obsession and difficulty in kicking a bad relationship. And the happy ending song reminded everyone that "It's Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood."
Posted by: ldonaldson
on Apr 11, 2011
Tagged in:
The Rolling Stones ,
The Beatles ,
performers ,
Oliver Sacks ,
musicians ,
music therapy ,
music heals ,
live music ,
John Lennon ,
Grateful Dead ,
Crosby, Stills, and Nash ,
Buffalo Springfield ,
audience-adult ,
Amnesia ,
Alzheimer’s disease
Bread & Roses serves people of all ages and backgrounds who are isolated in institutions. Some of them suffer from lapses in memory. We have seen seniors with Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, who may not recognize their grandchildren, but are still able to recall all the lyrics of a song.
Those who know the power that music has to invoke memory will appreciate The Music Never Stopped, a 2011 Sundance Film Festival pick that examines the relationship between memory, music, and healing. In the film, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), is reunited with his parents, Henry (J.K. Simmons) and Helen Sawyer (Cara Seymour), when he turns up at a hospital in New York in 1986 with a large, yet benign brain tumor that has severely damaged his memory. The past, present and future are virtually indistinguishable for him and he is incapable of interacting with those around him, including his parents, from whom he’s been estranged for 20 years.
When medicine and traditional therapy fail to help Gabriel regain his memory, Henry contacts a music therapist, Dianne Daley (Julia Ormond), who discovers that when Gabriel listens to the music that he loved as an adolescent, especially the Grateful Dead, he is able to reconnect with the world. We all have a soundtrack to our lives, and somehow that musical memory seems to survive even the most traumatic of brain injuries.
