The Lopez High School Band will be displaying their musical talents to benefit the Family Resource Center on May 6 at the Lopez Community Center (LCCA), as well as for another cause, Playing for Change.

Ann Marie Fischer, music instructor at the Lopez High School who has mentored the High School Band from its inception, commented, “We are doing this performance to raise funds for the Family Resource Center, specifically for the food bank that the FRC oversees. We thought that we would suggest as well that concert-goers bring cans of food for the food bank before the concert.”

The musicians play mainly rock and blues. They cover such classic rock tunes as the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar, as well as Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. They also emulate the style of The Band, Credence Clearwater Revival and Muddy Waters.

Fischer thought that it was time for them to focus their talents on giving back to the community. “I felt that at this point, turning them towards a benefit concert would be a good thing for them to do. And Playing for Change is a multi-media movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. Mark Johnson is the founder of this movement. Music is something we can all share without an international language; it helps us to understand each other as it is a strong way to communicate. He’s taken this one song “Stand By Me” and filmed musicians in a succession around the world, playing different variations on that one song. For example, a Russian cellist takes the song, and then a group of African players in Uganda play the same song on their drums….and I showed it to the guys and they liked the idea a lot. It takes the music to a higher level.”

The High School Band, which consists primarily of seniors who have played together for the last four years, will be playing one last performance on May 30 at the Lopez Islander just for the fun of it, per Bill Diller’s invitation.

Fischer smiled. “It’s in their blood, and you can’t stop them putting everything they feel into these standard rock and roll hits.

“They are extremely motivated; I’ve worked with them and they have hammered out a lot of issues in that time. I help obtain sheet music for them and now they are so good at figuring out songs aurally that they rarely use the music. Sometimes they write out chord charts and road maps for tunes but by and large they are playing by ear and by feel.”

For further details, go to the Lopez Community Center website, which is www.lopezcenter.com