The first annual Songs of Deep Emotion and Bright Light concert to benefit the Nic Pagano LGBTQIA+ Scholarship Fund for Recovery has been confirmed for January 26th at City Winery in New York City. Tickets are on sale now: https://citywinery.com/newyork/Online/Article/NYC-Songs-of-Deep-Emotion-1-26-23-8pm.
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The Nic Pagano LGBTQIA+ Scholarship Fund was created to enable ongoing assistance for families and individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community in need of financial help after agreeing to treatment for a substance use disorder.
The concert will feature a diverse array of acclaimed musicians, including Rosanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, Bettye LaVette, Amy Helm, Willie Nile, Kate Pierson, Rachael Yamagata, and music director Rich Pagano. Steve Earle and Martha Redbone were just added to the lineup as well.
Additional national and local music acts will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Each artist will perform a short set that illustrates an emotional and compromising element, and a level of promise and faith. The flow will range from "melancholy blue" to "electric heat."
In addition to raising proceeds from ticket sales, the event will feature an auction segment of coveted music-related photographs, including donations by Mark Seliger, William Coupon, Bob Gruen, The Gordon Parks Foundation, and more. The auction will take place thanks to the outreach of Karen Marks, director of Howard Greenberg Gallery, one of the premiere photographic galleries in the world. Phillips Auction House has generously offered to facilitate.
One month before his accidental death due to fentanyl poisoning on July 2nd 2021, Nic and his parents, Karen Marks and Rich Pagano, were eating lunch near the sober house that he was residing in at the time when the conversation turned to the plight of the LGBTQIA+ community, its fear of ostracization, and the assumption of lack of communal inclusion within the treatment world. Nic, leaning to an eventual career in social work, singled out the transgender community in particular for its marginalization. Unfortunately, last month's hateful incident in Colorado is a clear indication that the stigma, fear and threats against the gay community need to be confronted, disarmed, and dispelled.
The Release Recovery Foundation and Caron Treatment Centers have partnered in the creation of the Nic Pagano Scholarship Fund, which is based at Caron Treatment Center in Pennsylvania. This scholarship aims to improve access to care for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Since its inception in the fall of 2021, the Nic Pagano LGBTQIA Scholarship Fund has awarded six financial scholarships to clients in need of substance use treatment. Services also address stigma, heterosexism, internalized homophobia, discrimination, and addiction.
"We started The Release Recovery Foundation to help individuals who just didn’t have the same access to treatment that I had growing up," said Zac Clark, a Caron Board Member who co-founded the foundation. "We identified the LGBTQIA community as one where we could make a difference."
For more information, visit https://www.caron.org/donate/nic-pagano and https://www.releaserecoveryfoundation.org/lgbtqia.
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