The Non-Profit pivots from live streaming to creating original content all with the aim of using music as a “vessel for healing.”
| “Music,” she said, “is a gift, and a vessel for healing. I believe it can do that.” She’s the great soul singer Andra Day, considered one of the greatest vocalists of our time, who is using her gift for healing in real and powerful ways. She’s added her remarkable voice to the new episodic music series, MCPConnects, created by Seattle-based non-profit Melodic Caring Project . The charity has been bringing personalized livestreamed performances by a wide range of touring artists directly to the hospital beds of sick children in isolation or quarantine since 2011, but the indefinite hold on live concert events due to the Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated a new paradigm for bringing music content and personal shout-outs to the organization’s community of rockSTARS watching from hospitals and home-care facilities around the world. |
| Andra Day’s song “Rise Up” was inspired by a friend’s cancer battle, but it has also become an anthem for various movements over the past five years. She supported the Melodic Caring Project with a 2016 livestreamed performance of the song complete with name checks dedicated to ten of the organization’s rockSTARS. Day, whose voice has been compared to Eartha Kitt and Nina Simone, appeared with rapper Common on the Academy Award nominated Best Original Song “Stand Up for Something” for the film Marshall in 2018. |
| Melodic Caring Project launched MCPConnects in March, soon after “Stay at Home” orders forced the cancellation of the live music events that have been the core of the organization’s mission. The series now comprises more than two dozen episodes, many from artists who have previously supported MCP in their mission. Other artists who have already participated in the MCPConnects series include Fitz and the Tantrums, Amos Lee, Allen Stone, American Authors, Mondo Cozmo, Tyrone Wells, Eric Bibb, Eva Holbrook (SHEL), Tim Wilson (Ivan & Alyosha), Ethan Anderson (Massy Ferguson), Brandon Ghorley (The BGP), Rob Drabkin, Haley Johnsen, Lisbeth Scott, Bailen and The T Sisters. New episodes in the series, comprising a short Facetime conversation conducted by MCP founder Levi Ware with an artist, followed by a performance of a song, are posting weekly. Many more segments are in the queue to be posted or will be shot over the coming weeks. The entire series can be viewed here. |
| “During these shows,” explains Levi Ware, “we connect with artists in their own homes for a brief 6-10 minute interview and a song performance dedicated to specific kids in hospitals around the world. Because of the pandemic, we also started to provide messages of love, support and appreciation to our first responders and healthcare providers, who have dedicated themselves to caring for others during this emergency. Incredibly, Melodic went from producing and average of two shows a month to three shows per week, and we’re supporting more kids, working with more artists and creating more content than ever in our 10-year history.” Melodic Caring Project, co-founded by recording artist Levi Ware and his wife Stephanie, first tapped into the array of local concerts in the Seattle area, livestreaming artists’ scheduled shows from local clubs to local hospital wards populated by severely ill children they dubbed rockSTARS. During each live broadcast the artist on stage calls the patients out by name, offering love and support to each child and their families. The organization slowly expanded its dominion to add shows originating from much larger venues—some in other cities—by high profile artists, among them Brandi Carlile, Jools Holland, Coldplay, Hozier, The ROOTS, Lukas Nelson, Black Eyed Peas, Fitz and the Tantrums, Andy Grammar, Jason Mraz, Amos Lee, David Crosby, X Ambassadors and many others. Since its inception, the organization has impacted the lives of over 15,000 children and family members with personalized concerts viewed from hospital rooms around the world. Melodic Caring Project has essentially brought the outside world directly to children too sick to leave their hospital beds. With live concerts furloughed during the current pandemic, MCP has used its existing technology to service an already captive audience with fresh, original content and now expand their reach to include so many living in isolation the world over. In this time of social distancing that the public at large is experiencing for the first time, there has never been a greater need for the healing power of music. For more on Leon Ware’s Melodic Caring, see our story here. |
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