The Upper School’s Soma Club was scheduled to hold a concert Aug. 31 to raise money to help a disability center in Burundi. The club will use the donations to purchase wheelchairs, crutches, shoes and vaccines and ship the equipment to the missionary who runs the center.
The hour-long concert at the Shalom Disability Center was expected to include performances by 12 student musicians and the Shalom Disability Ministries Choir.
The students planned to play a wide variety of classical and jazz music.
The club was founded in May 2013 to give student musicians the opportunity to support the disabled by means of music. In addition to performing at the Soma Club’s biannual concerts, members volunteer each week at local disability centers and ministries. At Young Nak Church, students teach disabled persons how to play music.
“We spend the morning teaching them how to bow, how to read music, and how to work as a group,” Soma president Diana Kim ’15 said. “Their first concert is planned sometime this winter, so the members will be working hard with them to prepare for the concert.”
Some students also play once a month at the Little Jesus Family, a small home in Los Angeles where a nun looks after three women with learning impairments.
“I think Soma offers a meaningful experience to me personally because I have never worked with or played for people with disabilities, and it’s really opened my eyes,” member Ryan Lee ’15 said.