Music Rising Offers Musicians Flood Relief

Music Rising, the campaign launched in 2005 to aid the musicians of the Gulf Coast Region after the hurricane disasters of Katrina and Rita, has pledged support to the city of Nashville and its musicians affected by the recent floods. Co-founded by U2’s the Edge, legendary producer Bob Ezrin and Gibson Guitar CEO and Chairman Henry Juszkiewicz, Music Rising announced its partnership with MusiCares® in cooperation with the Gibson Foundation to administer the Music Rising Nashville Flood Relief efforts that will aid musicians with the repair and replacement of instruments damaged or destroyed in the recent Tennessee floods.

Effective immediately, Music Rising will donate $250,000 to MusiCares to be used specifically for Music Rising/Nashville Flood Relief. These funds will be earmarked to help musicians in the Nashville area repair or replace instruments that fell victim to the flood waters. Hundreds of musicians  who call Nashville home have lost instruments and equipment. In the aftermath of the floods, as the entire city is trying to grasp the enormity of the loss, the musicians are hoping they will have the instruments they need to perform. Anyone interested in donating to Music Rising’s Nashville Flood Relief effort and increasing the initial $250,000 donation can do so by going to  www.gibsonfoundation.org and clicking on Flood Relief donations. Contributions should be noted by the donor with the request to go directly to Music Rising Nashville.

“When we created Music Rising in 2005, our mission was to help rebuild and preserve the musical culture of the Central Gulf Region,” says co-founder Ezrin. “We started by replacing musicians’ instruments that were lost or destroyed by the hurricanes, and we continue to expand our efforts to benefit the region’s musical heritage. Now, it’s our responsibility to help Nashville’s music community recover from these historic floods, and Music Rising will do just that.”

“As a co-founding partner, Gibson Guitar will continue to support Music Rising,” says Juszkiewicz. “As we have done in the Gulf Region, we plan on staying the course until the Nashville music community has recovered. It continues to be a great honor to work aside the Edge of U2 and producer Bob Ezrin in every effort of Music Rising. We will see Nashville rise again and it will be better than ever.”

“MusiCares is very proud to be partnering with the Gibson Foundation on another Music Rising program — this time to put instruments back into the hands of musicians in Nashville,” says Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy® and MusiCares. “It is especially poignant to be providing this assistance to music people in the home to Gibson’s headquarters, given its longtime philanthropic support of the global music community.”

“Nashville is a treasure chest of Southern heritage and American musical tradition and is indisputably the world’s Country Music capital,” says the Edge. “But it’s more than that. It is also home to one of the greatest concentrations of musical talent on earth. The news of the floods brought back terrible memories of Katrina and when Anderson Cooper of CNN titled his new coverage Nashville Rising it became obvious what we had to do.”

In order to be considered for assistance, musicians must complete the confidential application process. Each applicant must be able to demonstrate that they have a damaged or destroyed instrument. MusiCares will be handling the verification. Beginning Monday, May 17, the MusiCares (www.musicares.com), Music Rising (www.musicrising.org) and Gibson Foundation (www.gibsonfoundation.org) sites will have applications, contact numbers and information for musicians who would like to apply. Music Rising/Nashville Flood Relief, is administered by MusiCares in partnership with Gibson Foundation.