Music heals. It helps people with cancer cope better with the side effects of treatment, reduces stress and anxiety, and brings people together. This is why the Stand Up To Cancer (SUC2) Canada Kate McGarrigle Fund is inviting anyone who has cancer—or has survived it—to share their journey through original music and lyrics.
You could be one of 10 finalists selected by a panel of music and cancer professionals to win a $ 2,500 “Music As Healing” grant, according to a recent press release.
The rules are simple. You must currently live in Canada or the United States and be in active treatment or care for cancer or be a cancer survivor. Applications will be accepted until March 2, 2020, 5 p.m. (ET).
The grants will help support the professional recording of the selected finalists’ original compositions. The even better news is that some finalists’ songs may be compiled into a digital Music As Healing album, sales of which will benefit the SUC2 Canada Kate McGarrigle Fund. (SU2C is a nonprofit collaborative that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research.)
The fund provides music resources to people living with cancer who have a passion for music and raises money for sarcoma research. The fund honors the late Kate McGarrigle, a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister, Anna McGarrigle. In 2010, at age 63, she died of clear-cell sarcoma.
McGarrigle was married to singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and was the mother of singer-songwriters Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright. Rufus Wainwright is an ambassador for the Stand Up To Cancer Canada Kate McGarrigle Fund, while his sister serves as music director of “Music As Healing,” the new SUC2 initiative behind the grants.
“Music was a constant, a natural extension of daily life for our mother, who was often described as a luminous singer,” said Martha Wainwright. “I’m hoping that ‘Music As Healing’ extends her legacy by illustrating through the songs that will be recorded, through the listening experience of cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones, how music can provide a bright, shining light through the darkness that can accompany a cancer diagnosis.”
To apply for the grant, click here.
For related coverage, read “Dulcimer Harmonies” to learn how Gary and Janice Brunk, who are both living with cancer, fill the oncology clinic with sweet sounds.