Benefit brings in more than $1,500

Although the final amount raised Sunday night through the Hurricane Katrina benefit concert is not yet known, ticket and faculty CD sales generated at least $1,570, said event organizer Jenny Sherry.\nThe concert, held Sunday in Auer Hall, drew about 170 students and community members. Money raised from the concert will be donated to the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Habitat for Humanity's Musicians' Village to help benefit artists and musicians in and around New Orleans more than a year after Hurricane Katrina hit.\nThe concert featured works by Prokofiev, Schumann and Brahms, all performed by Jacobs School of Music string faculty members. Each piece received at least three enthusiastic rounds of applause, and many people in the audience wore colorful beads symbolic of New Orleans and Mardi Gras festivities. \nSherry, an IU junior and New Orleans native, said she organized the event in response to the lack of musical progress a year after the hurricane. She is hopeful that money raised at the concert will help.\n"It went really well. I'm very grateful of the support of faculty for this cause," she said. "This music was a wonderful gift to the community -- not only here but also in New Orleans."\nSherry's dedication to the event inspired others to try and help out as well. Distinguished viola faculty member Atar Arad expressed his approval of the event and praised Sherry's initiative.\n"Jenna should take all the credit; it's not an easy thing to organize," Arad said. "I would have been a fool to say no to this opportunity. If we can do anything to help those in need, we should."\nMany students also volunteered by ushering, serving refreshments and selling faculty CDs, the profits of which will go to the Katrina cause. Information about the various organizations the concert would benefit was displayed on tables.\n"I thought it was a beautiful tribute to the musicians and budding musicians in New Orleans affected by the hurricane," said IU senior and volunteer usher Lisa Loew. "After reading the press release, I felt compelled to participate and help out."\nThere have been other events coordinated to try and raise money for the Gulf region, but few were specifically tailored to musicians. \n"It's nice to see something being done that isn't necessarily just targeting poverty or poor people," graduate student Nick Volz said.