This month's feature:  Music Heals at the Leading Note Music Winter Recital

On an icy and blustery Sunday in January, Leading Note Music held its Winter Recital.  This was the largest recital to date with 33 performers including guest performer Ricker Choi.  Congratulations to all Leading Note Music students on delivering a fantastic recital! 

Ricker Choi's piano performance and Bridget Puhacz's vocal performance of an original composition by Christina Puhacz were in honour of two groups that are sponsoring Syrian refugee families to come to Canada - The Mosaic Group and the Guildwood Refugee Action Committee.

Many members of the Mosaic Group were part of the wave of 60,000 boat people that Canada took in and they would like to help provide Syrian refugees with the same opportunities that they were given.  To that end, the Mosaic Group is in the process of bringing a 3 generation Syrian family from a Jordan refugee camp to Toronto. (The family includes 2 grandparents, 2 parents, and 4 children ages 10, 7, 5, and newborn).  They are hoping that they will arrive by the end of January or early February. The Mosaic Group has raised the financial funds for the sponsorship but are looking for donations of clothing for 4 adults and 4 children for all seasons and household furniture and goods( like bedding). Grace Baba and Vy Hoang's family are part of the Mosaic Group.  Their children, Bethany and Braeden, are Leading Note Music students. 

In October 2015, a group of Guildwood residents came together in a common cause of caring and the Guildwood Refugee Action Committee (GRACE) was born. Millions of refugees currently making their way from Syria,Iraq, and Northern Africa in search of a better life were a great motivator to GRACE members to join together and do something to help.  Their mission is to make a life-altering difference for at least one refugee family through private sponsorship and they are currently seeking funding to make it possible for one refugee family to come and make a new life in Scarborough.  Nadia and Darrick Heyd are on the steering committee of GRACE.  Their daughter Valerie Heyd is a Leading Note Music student.                                         

A limited number of copies of Ricker Choi's Arabesque CD are available through Leading Note Music for $20. The proceeds from the sale of these CDs will be donated to the Guildwood Refugee Action Committee.  If interested, please contact Christina Puhacz (clpuhacz@gmail.com).  To support the Mosaic Group, I am calling on all Leading Note Music families to contribute small household items to a collection box at Leading Note Music's home studio prior to January 31st.