Benefit seeks to help musicians with passion

Concert and silent auction to be held at Bodles Chester — Music for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to musicians in need, will hold a concert and silent auction from 5 to 9 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9, Bodles Opera House, located at 39 Main St. in Chester. Music for Humanity was founded in 2001, when Kurt Irmiter developed a Web site where up-and-coming recording artists could promote and sell their CD’s, benefit from an internationally promoted Web site, and also donate a percentage of the proceeds from each sale to some worthy cause in the world. The idea — beyond listeners enjoying new music and the musicians profiting from sales of their work — was to benefit Music for Humanity, now based in Chester, every time a CD is sold. Each participating musician would choose the organization or cause they wished to donate to. Skip forward to 2005, when Irmiter got a phone call from Barry Adelman, who wants to know if he would sell him the domain of his Web site, noticing it has been a few years since it was registered, but with no site yet up. Adelman was working on the release of his first CD, and he wanted to donate all of the proceeds from CD sales to Music for Humanity. He had the idea of a Web site called musicforhumanity.org. Irmiter and Adelman hit it off, and found they have some ideas in common — particularly, the concept of music benefiting humanity. They teamed up to make the idea a reality. Music for Humanity aims to help spread the international language of music and to use its emotional and spiritual power to improve life on this planet, and to channel money spent for music to worthy causes and organizations working toward building a better world. It will accomplish its mission by becoming a charity and raising money on its Web site (www.musicforhumanity.org), corporate donations, and occasional live fundraisers. The collected money will be used for providing scholarships to people with a passion for music who need financial aid. Anyone who wishes may contribute a product or a service (such cleaning, art lessons, pet sitting, among many possibilities) to be auctioned off at the Bodles fundraiser. Musicians may contribute by donating a performance to the fundraiser. And simple monetary contributions may be sent to Music for Humanity, PO Box 359, Chester, N.Y. 10918. For more information, visit Humanity’s Web site or call Bodles at 469-4595.