Musicians of Mercy
By Matthew Wisniewski
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti was a highly destructive event. News anchors reported that 316,000 people were killed. While no one on American soil lost their life from the tremors, everyone saw footage of the wreckage and many felt the vibrations in their gut. But Americans are exposed to numerous televised tragedies on a daily basis. Though we were all affected emotionally by the disaster, there was a void in the response. However, the disaster did prompt some to make music.
In Baltimore, Maryland, Robin Fay Massie, 30, was fed up with the void. So instead of sitting around complaining, she decided to do something about it. Being a long-time musician in the Maryland-D.C. area, it was only natural for her to organize a concert. This was her way of taking what she had been doing and turning it into something that would help in the relief effort.
“Organizing concerts ...” Massie says, “that’s what I’d been doing my whole life.” She already had the connections, so she sent e-mails, booked a venue, and before she knew it, she had received responses from about 70 musicians. Massie and these supporters became the Musicians of Mercy.
Though she makes it sound simple, Massie faced many challenges in organizing that first event. It had to be coordinated and executed in a timely manner. It had to successfully raise awareness and funds. Of course, the musical aspect couldn’t be neglected either. It also had to be artistically fulfilling for Massie and the other musicians. “It quickly became a massive project,” Massie says. However, with help from the local press, as well as some old-fashioned persistence and hard work, the group was able to put on an entertaining and socially conscious show.
After the success of the first Musicians of Mercy event, Massie wasted no time planning the next. Soon, she was working out the logistics for another and another, with different causes at the focus—anti-bullying, HIV studies, and survivors of violent crimes. For these large undertakings, Massie knew she needed all the help she could get. That’s why Musicians of Mercy includes both professional and recreational musicians. After all, musicians were the fuel of the project, but the vehicle itself was about much more than simply making music.
Musicians of Mercy is not a hand-selected group of professionals looking to deliver heartless chops, it is the right people with the right passion. Thus, the end product is a diverse performance—with people of different ages, races, and professions. While Massie works within the professional music world, she finds it thrilling to be musically and artistically engaged with musicians who do not have professional careers. She says, “It is really refreshing to sit down next to someone who maybe doesn’t touch their instrument every day, but is just so excited to be there.”
Massie isn’t shy about saying that, in the professional music world, “there are some stinky attitudes.” To work with amateur musicians, even high school students, who look forward to an opportunity just to play, and who still exhibit the passion and love for the music-making process that she has not lost sight of, is an experience that Massie enjoys thoroughly.
Robin Fay Massieis the founder of Musicians of Mercy, which recently gathered more than 70 musicians for Kids Are Heroes Day, which recognizes youths who make a positive impact on their communities.
One such musician is Barbara Bowen, 45, an accountant who was part of the most recent Musicians of Mercy performance. It did not take her long to identify the fact that the group was more of a collaboration of friends than a collective of professional musicians. “Regardless of what they do for a living, they are all professional humans with massive hearts and copious compassion,” says Bowen.
Another of Massie’s recruits, Johnny Shen, is a 37-year-old engineer who can only dedicate time to playing music on the weekends. He describes his involvement with Musicians of Mercy as a win-win situation. Not only does he get to polish his violin chops, but the collective provides him a way to serve the community, which he sees as a great opportunity.
For 17-year-old high school student Alex Walker, the path to the group was a bit different. She did not have musical abilities sitting on the shelf, waiting for a cause worthy enough to spark her interest in playing. She had only begun learning the cello six months prior to hearing about Musicians of Mercy. So, when her concert instructor suggested she join the group, she was naturally excited.
“I was thrilled that my teacher saw actual potential in my abilities,” says Walker, admitting that performing with an orchestra has always been a dream of hers.
After talking it over with her parents, she decided to give it a whirl, and it worked out pretty well for her. Walker says that, after her second stint with the group, several of the professional players stopped and asked her how she was doing, how school was coming along, and what her future plans were.
“The fact that people actually remembered who I was, and that they genuinely cared about how I was doing really touched me,” says Walker. “These wonderful musicians are taking time out of their busy lives, sometimes even passing up paying gigs, to be in these concerts; that, I think, really says something.”
While somewhat of a unique example, Walker’s experience with the group, in a way, is very typical. She wants to be there. The members of Musicians of Mercy, both professional and nonprofessional are, above all, people donating their time to a cause they believe in. Massie thinks that music shouldn’t be confined to the practice room; it is not enough to sit locked away practicing scales. As much as the technicality of music is important to her, she is equally concerned with what is going on in the world around her. However, these two things do not operate independently. They inform and influence one another. And as Musicians of Mercy continues to raise awareness and money for a broad range of issues, the connection that music has to the world around us becomes more and more apparent.
Matthew Wisniewski is a Buffalo, New York, journalist. He is co-founder of the musical-theater project, Well Worn Boot.
