The Music and Us Serving Everyone (MUSE) ensemble will hold its 14th annual benefit concert 4 p.m. Monday at the New Community Baptist Church, 1250 W. Middlefield Road, Mountain View. Admission is free, and all donations will go to support Save the Children, a nonprofit organization that helps save children from conflicts and crises, including the West Bank and Gaza.
MUSE is a Bay Area youth volunteer ensemble, which was founded by students in 2011 to use music to bring joy to communities, often performing free shows at local senior homes. The ensemble consists of members from across the south Bay Area, including Los Altos and Mountain View high schools. Brian Choi, violinist and Los Altos high sophomore, joined the ensemble because he thought it would be a great opportunity to share music with his community.
“I want to use my music to help others, especially children, and I thought this was a creative way to use music for service,” Choi told the Town Crier.
Mountain View high sophomore Eileen Kim joined for similar reasoning and is excited to play a lead part in the ensemble’s arrangement of “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay.
Flute player and concert organizer Daniel Yoon said that they chose Save the Children for this year’s charity partner because of the way the organization helps children in 120 countries receive educational opportunities, health care and improved economic opportunities.
“As a group together, we just thought that working with children may be the most relatable thing to us,” Yoon said. “And what other better way to bring up the new generation than fostering a good community of children and helping them grow up with good circumstances.”
Beyond this year’s benefit concert, the members of MUSE want to broaden the ensemble’s reach and welcome new members that are passionate about advancing the group’s goals.
“I hope that future members realize the significance of how music impacts us as individuals, and how we can really create bonds with each other through that and spread that through our audience,” Kim said. “I hope that they know that music is a universal tool that helps us connect to each other.”
MUSE will play 14 pieces at the concert, including Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Yiruma’s River Flows in You, and The Best of Abba.
For more information, visit muse-musicandus.org. or email [email protected].
