2022: “Sounds of Hope: Rebuilding Ukraine” (Benefit Concert)
My final project at the University of St. Thomas was a rather spontaneous one. A few faculty of the University of St. Thomas sought to organize a special benefit concert in response to the recent Ukraine-Russia Conflict. The event was meant to not just show solidarity and unity of the St. Thomas community in condemning the attacks, but also as an opportunity to raise awareness of how the conflict was impacting everyday civilians. It also provided a special fundraising opportunity for people of the community to donate towards a special cause that was being organized by a newly created non-profit “Rebuild Ukraine”, co-founded by a St. Thomas faculty member (who also came to the event as a keynote speaker to further promote the non-profit). To say this endeavor was spontaneous might be a bit of an understatement since the project was overall proposed and launched only about a month before the concert date. And while anyone else would have rejected it due to its extremely close time frame, we were still up to the challenge of producing something that St. Thomas could still be proud of. In the end, I am very impressed and very proud of what we were able to pull off. With the help of some wonderful faculty and student musicians, as well as a few student volunteers to help out as crew, we were able to put on and record a show that would hopefully help raise awareness and motivate people to contribute to a decent cause. In general, it’s a very noteworthy project in part due to the extremely short time frame in which it was produced. Proudly filmed and edited in record time by yours truly.