MARKING A NEW PHASE
TWO UNIQUE ‘Music for Vision’ concerts have been held in Mumbai and Delhi in October to mark the start of a new phase in Helpmesee’s global campaign to end cataract blindness. The proceeds would support the training for cataract specialists and achieve cataract backlog free communities in some of the poorest districts in India by 2020. India has one of the largest cataract-affected population in the world.
The concerts which was held at the Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi recently, was a unique Indo-us musical collaboration bringing together leading international musicians. They are presented by Helpmesee and Music for Life International (MFLI), two well-known international organizations.
They featured legendary Sarod Maestro Amjad Ali Khan, distinguished US based conductor and MFLI Artistic Director, George Mathew, renowned American violinist Elmira Darvarova (the first woman ever to serve as Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York) and the Bombay Chamber Orchestra which has presented orchestral music to Indian audiences for more than half a century.
The concerts featured iconic works by Indian and American composers.
MFLI Artistic Director George Mathew observed, “Music has the capacity not only to bring people together for a cause, it has frequently and can become the vehicle to illuminate the cause. Aaron Copland’s iconic ballet music is a powerful metaphor for the gift of vision that Helpmesee seeks to bring to millions of people affected by cataract in India and beyond.”
Since 2012, Helpmesee has worked with 292 cataract specialists in ten countries who have performed nearly 250,000 surgeries, and have created India’s first ‘Cataract backlog free’ district in Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh in 2014 and subsequently replicated this in another four districts (two each in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh).
Music for Life International, (MFLI) is a New York based social enterprise that was established to create social impact in a variety of sectors through music.
MFLI presents musical concerts and other programs to promote the awareness of major international humanitarian crises and other public interest issues around the world. MFLI takes its name from the legendary MUSIC FOR LIFE concert organized by Leonard Bernstein in 1987 at Carnegie Hall.