Music for All Seasons: A great cause for #GivingTuesday

Our July group in the Studio, 2021

Since our return to live music and in-person events, my work writing songs with Veterans has been most heartening.

Last year this time, we were celebrating some great radio play for Two Sides but still in the all-virtual world. Thankfully, the KT Duo and KT Band have been playing live for months, saying “YES!” to everything — even as the schedule has left no time to update the website or send out e-mails.

But since our return to live music and in-person events, my work writing songs with Veterans has been most heartening. I have been doing this work with the Voices of Valor program for about five years. Over the course of several weeks, along with my Co-Musician/Facilitator Julio Fernandez (from Spyro Gyra), we get to know a group of Veterans, talk music and songwriting, and write a song together. Julio puts together an amazing track, and we all go into a professional recording studio to record the Veteran-penned song in their own voices. Over the years, this program has meant so much to me. As I have learned of the broader work done by the parent organization, Music for All Seasons, to bring healing music into non-traditional settings, I decided to join the board, give back to the cause, and work with the founders as we expand our songwriting programs into juvenile detention centers with a generous grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Music for All Seasons turns 30 this year, and our grant to work in juvenile detention centers requires matching funds up to $30,000. If the mission and programs of Music for All Seasons sounds like something you’d like to support, please use the form below or visit our “Give 30: Music For All Seasons” fundraising page to give any amount - small or large - to help us meet our goal.

Rockin’ peace to ya,
Kirsten