Four outstanding Latino leaders and artists will be the Hispanic Heritage Month honorees at Union City Music Project’s 4th Annual Benefit on Wed., Oct. 15 from 7 to 10 pm at Weehawken’s Chart House (1700 Harbor Boulevard).
The evening of live performances, hors d’oeuvres, and cocktails will help support UCMP’s bilingual After School Orchestral Music Education Program, now in its third year and serving close to 100 of Union City’s at-risk K-to-6th graders. Benefit tickets can be purchased for $100 each, either online at EventBrite.com (http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ucmps-fourth-annual-benefit-tickets-13077285513) or at the door on October 15.
The benefit’s honorees will include celebrated Colombian filmmaker and author Paola Mendoza (“Entre Nos”), Venezuelan dancer Marielys Molina (Broadway’s “Motown” and 2003 World Salsa Champion), Nicaraguan visual artist Franck De Las Mercedes, and Venezuelan social entrepreneur Yael Marciano (Strathas Consulting).
In UCMP’s After School Program, professional musicians teach Union City’s elementary school students to sing and play violin, cello, flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and percussion in UCMP Children’s Orchestra and Chorus. The local non-profit also offers these children and their families Field Trips, Parent Workshops, Visiting Artists Program, Student Mentors, and an annual Summer Music Day Camp.
Besides sharing the joy of music for just pennies a day, UCMP also instills in the city’s mostly low-income urban students such fundamental life skills as self-esteem, self-expression, cooperative learning, discipline, and creativity, while also improving academics and behavior – all vital to developing future leaders and a sound and productive community.
Launched in March 2012, Union City Music Project (UCMP) is New Jersey’s first El Sistema-inspired afterschool music program, and to date has served more than 100 children ages 3 to 11 from Union City’s low-income, mostly Latino community. Since 2007, US urban communities like Union City have created more than 100 El Sistema-inspired programs to serve their inner-city children and youth. As a result, they’re seeing decreased school absenteeism, improved grades, reduced youth crime and teenage pregnancy, and increased high school graduation rates and pursuit of higher education. For more information about UCMP and its innovative music education programming, go to www.ucmusicproject.org.