The Living Proof Exhibit and the Muscatine Art Center have teamed up to offer a two-part concert series by Muscatine native Juan Carlos Mendoza.
Mendoza is a Juilliard-trained tenor who has performed with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Music Festival, New York Society for Ethical Culture, and Aspen Opera Theater Center. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa and is currently part of the voice faculty at Augustana College and Kirkwood Community College. For this concert series, Mendoza is accompanied by Jessica Monnier on the piano in the Muscatine Art Center’s Music Room.
The first 20-minute program will air on Muscatine Access Channel Nine at 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13, then a second concert will be at the same times on Dec. 4. Three days after each concert, the videos will be on the YouTube channels for both Living Proof Exhibit and Channel Nine, as well as www.muscatineartcenter.org.
As executive director for Moline-based LPE, Pamela Crouch is passionate about providing the therapeutic benefits of the arts to people affected by cancer. The Muscatine Art Center has been a partner since 2017, and together the two organizations planned to hold singalong events with Mendoza as guest star. However, singing is an activity that creates a lot of small airborne particles, and people touched by cancer have good reason to take extra precautions to guard against the coronavirus, so Crouch and Mendoza agreed to air the concerts for free. They were recorded last month.
"The original idea was, there would be music -- he would sing, people would bring songs they wanted to share that either he would sing or they would sing. We were going to incorporate writing and journaling, and make it a very community gathering – a gathering around music. Of course, we cannot gather, but we’re lucky enough that Juan Carlos was able to record his concerts, so it’s in a concert format this year. We were able to do that, which was pretty terrific.”
“At Muscatine Art Center, if you’ve ever been there, they have a stunning, just beautiful music room. So the idea is, quite frankly, in the future we still want to pursue this concept of music and writing, that people are sharing songs that mean something to them, or in memory of someone. We truly want people to reach out and utilize music as one of the art mediums, to reduce the stress of cancer diagnosis.”
Crouch says Living Proof – which offers free arts programs and creative sessions to people affected by cancer - had a large survivor art exhibit at Muscatine Art Center in 2019, and it's had sessions there, using a variety of art media. Using the same principle, the filmed concerts are free for people to enjoy.
“Cancer is so expensive, we don’t want any support to be costly. And since we changed to a virtual format, we kept that same concept behind having our creative sessions as free – to make them more accessible to everyone. What’s terrific is that because it’s virtual, this program doesn’t have to just stay in Muscatine.
People will be able to share it with their friends and family, and once it’s up on our YouTube channel, this concert will be able to reach people who are touched by cancer throughout the country. Goodness knows, this pandemic has increased the stress of a cancer diagnosis.
“People with cancer and their loved ones are having to isolate more. They are feeling much more stress because of their compromised immune system, so being able to not only listen to a concert – Juan Carlos explains each piece before he performs it, and you do get to see a little bit of the music room.”
Crouch would like to hold similar music events in the Quad-Cities in the future.
“I would love to expand music outreach, especially if it’s something people can participate actively in. Once we can return to in-person, or even continuing our hybrid sessions, so we’ll always have a virtual component to it – but even a virtual component, you can actively participate in a singalong. Ultimately, what we really want people to be able to do is, share music that means something to them.”
"We’ve all seen how important all the arts are, especially when we are isolated at home. All the arts programming that we do can work together, to continue as I said, to reduce that stress of a cancer diagnosis, and bring hope and joy people touched by cancer.”
For more information, visit www.livingproofexhibit.org.
