Student organizes concert to aid New Orleans artists leans

In an attempt to invigorate and revitalize art and music in the Gulf region after Hurricane Katrina, the Jacobs School of Music hosts a concert at 1 p.m. Sunday in Auer Hall. The event, which costs $10 for students, will raise money for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra and Habitat for Humanity's Musicians' Village, according to a press release.\nJunior music major and New Orleans native Jenna Sherry said she organized the event single-handedly in response to the continued struggling of New Orleans artists a year after the hurricane hit.\n"The things that are really suffering in New Orleans are nonprofit organizations, education and the arts," Sherry said in a phone interview. "The classical musicians are really struggling, and historically, that music has really been important to the city."\nSome of the proceeds from this concert will be donated to the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra, a group founded in 1994 that was severely hit by the storm, Sherry said. Freshman music major Joyce Rorabaugh was a member of this group when the storm hit and said she is hopeful about the benefits the concert might bring.\n"A lot of people weren't able to come back because they didn't have houses," Rorabaugh said. "I would definitely say that more than half of the people we got back weren't even in the orchestra in the first place."\nAfter the hurricane hit, there was not much left because so much was ruined in the flood. \n"Everyone was affected -- just some more than others," Rorabagh said.\nThe concert and fundraising event will feature compositions by Prokofiev, Schumann and Brahms performed by Jacobs faculty members Atar Arad, Jaime Laredo, Mark Kaplan, Sharon Robinson and many others. Though the concert will not feature any of the jazz or blues tunes associated with Louisiana, Sherry said she is adamant about the classical music in the program.\n"Jazz and classical music are co-existing and parallel influences with each other," she said. "I think it's a big misconception that if you play one, you don't play the other. The classical community has gotten a lot less attention recently."\nThe Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, on the other hand, has gotten a lot of publicity. Aside from the numerous flyers around campus advertising the event, IU's Web site displays information about the event on its main page.\n"Everyone's community has been shattered," Sherry said. "My hope is to help out the arts because they're so important to the city. It's been really moving to see the support of the School of Music"