Today, April 30, 2012, our founder Mimi Fariña would have been 67-years-old.When she died of cancer in 2001, she was way too young to leave us.Mimi’s great gift is the strong legacy she left at Bread & Roses.
On this anniversary of her birthday, we appreciate all who continue to support our mission of hope and healing through live music. If you would like to join the Mimi Fariña Founder's Circle, please make a donation in her honor today.
In Singing Lessons: A Memoir of Love, Loss, Hope and Healing(c. 1998 p. 174) Judy Collins recalls looking for songs for an album project in 1976.
“After the death of her husband, Dick Fariña, Mimi Fariña, Joan Baez’s younger sister, had started a nonprofit organization in San Francisco called Bread & Roses, to provide free entertainment for people in homes, jails and hospitals in the Bay Area.She wrote the “Bread and Roses” melody to a poem by James Oppenheim and I recorded it, using a choir of voices in a church in New York.”
In her liner notes for the album, also titled Bread & Roses Judy said:“Songs come from many places, unexpectedly, amazingly.”She relayed how Mimi had sent her a copy of the “Bread and Roses” poem. She thought it so beautiful that she asked her to set it to music.Her sister Holly Ann then designed a Bread and Roses tapestry piece featuring a single rose and wove it using hand-dyed yarns which was then used as the art for the inside album cover.
Micah Press and his jazz combo at the San Rafael farmer's market.
Fall is a time when many nonprofits step up their fundraising efforts in order to meet end-of-year goals. This fall, Bread & Roses was delighted to be on the receiving end of the generosity of thirteen-year-old Micah Press, who took our mission to the streets with the help of his school’s jazz combo.
We first met Micah a few months ago when he set out to raise money in support of our organization. Being a musician himself, he said that of all the Marin nonprofits he could support, he felt most aligned with the mission and impact of Bread & Roses. In order to raise money, Micah played with his jazz combo at the San Rafael farmers market and requested that for his bar mitzvah, his guests make contributions to Bread & Roses in lieu of gifts.
In an ironic turn of events, we were recently able to give back to Micah when he spent time at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital for a neck problem. Singer/songwriter Francesca Lee (who is also a Bread & Roses producer) performed a bedside concert for Micah, reminding him that through his generosity, he had become a cherished member of the Bread & Roses extended family.
Recently, Micah was discharged from the hospital, and one of the first things he did was to deliver his donation. Amazingly, he exceeded his goal of raising $1,800, a number he chose because in Judaism, the number 18 is an expression of life. Micah says that he will continue to raise money for Bread & Roses with the help of his jazz trio once he is fully recovered. In the meantime, we will use his generous gift to sponsor shows for kids in other pediatric hospitals throughout the Bay Area.
Thank you Micah. A whole lot of hope, healing and joy will soon be shared thanks to your generosity.
Michael Pritchard as Emcee at Bread & Roses Volunteer Celebration on August 28, 2011
For the past several years, Michael Pritchard has been Bread & Roses ambassador-at-large. As a comedian and motivational speaker, he helps us convey the heart of our work and inspires all to continue Mimi Farina's legacy of providing hope and healing through live music and the performing arts to those isolated in institutions who need it most. As emcee at our recent volunteer celebration at the Freight & Salvage, Michael reminded us that it is generosity of spirit that connects us and makes us happy.
Appearing in the new independent documentary The Happy Movie, Michael Pritchardhelps us understand how to measure happiness. Those of us who live in the Bay Area can see the film Friday September 30 & Saturday October 1 at 7 pm at The Rafael Film Center in San Rafael and afterwards hear Michael in a Q & A with Associate Producer Omid Heidari. The Happy Movie will be shown at The Rafael for six days only (through Oct. 5) so don't miss the opportunity to see it. It will also be screened on Monday Oct. 24 at 5:30 pm in Palo Alto as part of the United Nations Association Film Festival co-sponsored by the Stanford Film Society and the UNA Mid-Peninsula Chapter.
Bread & Roses hosted a community gathering at a special happy hour at The Tavern at Lark Creek on Thursday, September 8. On the side patio of this beautiful, historic restaurant in Larkspur, many people from diverse parts of our ever-expanding community gathered to share good cheer. With festive sangria, margaritas, wine and beer for sale to benefit Bread & Roses, we visited with each other under the redwood trees and enjoyed the lively folk-rock music of the talented Rant Brothers.
Susan Gilardi, Bread & Roses Board Chair Emeritus, first had the inspiration for the second annual event along with restaurant manager TJ Jacobberger and Bread & Roses Executive Director Cassandra Flipper. While Susan was helping to greet people, her husband Dennis Gilardi parked his 1922 Model T Ford in the driveway to draw attention to the event.
With red, white and blue balloons bobbing cheerfully in the breeze, the band Moonalice played an upbeat Bread & Roses concert for the veterans at the VA Hospital in Menlo Park on Labor Day 2011. Blessed with beautiful sunny weather, this early afternoon special event was held on Monday, September 5 on a small stage in a grassy area to the right of the front door of the Community Living Center.
Our audience was a mix of veterans -- most from World War II who lived in the nursing unit close by and enjoyed the performance from a covered deck. They were assisted by other vets from the Vietnam era who came from a residential rehab program in a nearby building.
Photo: Moonalice performing a Bread & Roses show at Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco.
A band of seasoned musicians, Moonalice features Roger McNamee on rhythm guitar, bass and vocals; Ann McNamee on keyboards and vocals; Pete Sears on keyboards, guitar, vocals and bass; Barry Sless on lead, pedal steel and bass guitars; and John Molo on drums and vocals.
Pete Sears launched the set with "Down the Road", a crowd pleaser and apt metaphor for this traveling band that goes all over the country playing outdoor festivals and parks as a living embodiment of their belief that music is a communal experience that should be shared.
Robert Gupta's story is an inspiration to us all: not only does he play first chair violin for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he is also their youngest performer, having joined the orchestra in 2007 at the age of 19. What is perhaps most remarkable about this young prodigy is that in addition to his professional music career, he also directs his own free concert series, The Street Symphony, which brings live classical music to the homeless and mentally ill on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. KQED's California Report recently did an audio story on Robert's social service outreach, which includes comments from the patients after his concert. You can listen to the report here: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201108250850/b
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Bread & Roses serves a number of residential mental health facilities at major hospitals including short-term units at San Francisco General, and California Pacific Medical Center, as well as longer-term treatment facilities such as Cordilleras in Redwood City and Canyon Manor in Novato.Among our most challenging audiences, we know that mental health patients, particularly those who are also homeless, can be hard to engage and at the same time, are often deeply appreciative of and positively affected by music's healing force.
Gupta's interest in music as therapy for the mentally ill was perhaps inspired in 2008 when he met and began tutoring Nathanial Ayers, the schizophrenic musical virtuoso who is the subject of the bestselling book, The Soloistby L.A. Times columnist, Steve Lopez. Many of you might be familiar with the film adaptation, which stars Jamie Fox and Robert Downey Jr. Of his time working with Ayers, Gupta remarked that he was struck by how music seemed to calm Ayers and act as a sort of medicine or therapy. It was at that time that Robert began The Street Symphony.
Budding jazz chanteuse Lucy Krakow is a featured “Whiz Kid” on this week’s Larkspur Corte Madera Patch. While at Redwood High School, Lucy was a volunteer performer for Bread & Roses who did concerts for three different facility audiences. An inventive jazz singer with her own distinctive style, Lucy is also a talented singer-songwriter as well as guitarist.
For her Bread & Roses shows, she brought her talents as a creative collaborator to the forefront by recruiting three musicians to perform with her. At Marin Services for Women (MSW) she performed original songs she co-wrote with Katie Hamilton who is now at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. At Aldersly in San Rafael, a residential community for seniors, she played jazz standards with saxophone player Jake Botts. At Our Common Ground, a rehab for teens in Redwood City, she performed in a charming and inspirational duet with her brother Roger.
Bay Vibes Songwriters Unplugged, the first CD from nearly two years of Sunday night concerts featuring the Bay Area's best singer-songwriters at Yoshi's in San Francisco, is now available for purchase on CD Baby. Co-sponsored by SF Bay Vibes and Sonic Zen Records, all proceeds benefit Bread & Roses' mission to bring live music to those who are isolated in Bay Area institutions.
Of the artists on this recording, a half-dozen are either current or former Bread & Roses performers who are mainly acoustic guitar and keyboard-based and sometimes have a variety of other accompaniment. Their not-to-be-missed songs include Megan Slankard's "Planets"; Jeff Campbell's "Southern"; Garrin Benfield's "Unbound"; Heather Combs "Time and Time Again"; Francesca Lee's "Maybe Today" and Valerie Orth's "Beyond This Song."
This recording represents the pinnacle performances of some of the hundreds of songwriters who have taken the stage in this weekly series. Founded in 2009 by Robin Applewood of SF Bay Vibes and Charlie Wilson of Sonic Zen Records, the two are a formidable duo in bringing performers and fans together in new combinations and in creating an evolving community to support songwriters and musicians playing original acoustic music.
Long-time Bread & Roses volunteer and supporter Ken Harrison reported that he recently saw Armistead Maupin's "Tales of The City" a new musical at ACT's Geary Theater. He recalls that two years ago he was asked to drive Mr. Maupin to a benefit awards ceremony at the Herbst Theater. As they drove, Ken mentioned Bread & Roses and its founder Mimi Fariña. Mr. Maupin remembered that he had mentioned Mimi in his first "Tales of the City" novel. (See chapter Their First Date on page 75 in the most recent paperback edition).
When Ken recently saw the musical version of the book, he happily noted that the line "Oh look! There's Mimi Fariña... she's Joan Baez's sister" from the book made it into the staged version of the story. Noting that the play is set in San Francisco in 1976, shortly after Mimi Fariña founded Bread & Roses, Ken said this prompted him to recall pleasant memories and it appeared this was true for the audience too.
