Student Discount for The Angel Band Project Benefit Concert

Student Discount for The Angel Band Project Benefit Concert Featuring Norbert Leo Butz

Webster University students can get tickets at the discounted price of $20 when The Angel Band Project presents "The Angel Band Soundtrack" on Saturday, Nov. 2. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. located at The Sheldon on Washington Blvd. This benefit concert will raise funds for The Angel Band Project's music therapy programs and initiatives in St. Louis, Seattle and New York City.

Webster University alumnus and two-time Tony Award-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz '90 will make a guest performance at the event. The Angel Band Project was founded to honor Butz's sister, Teresa Butz, who was murdered in 2009. Norbert will be joined by Teresa's surviving partner, Jennifer Hopper, who is also a musician and performer.

Other contributors include The Women's HOPE Chorale and The Bach Society. Tony Award-winning producer, Michael J Moritz, Jr., will serve as music director for the performance.

The Angel Project Story

The inspiration for The Angel Band Project came from an unthinkable tragedy. In the wee morning hours of July 19, 2009, a man crept through an open window at the home of Teresa Butz and her partner, Jennifer Hopper. Both women were raped and stabbed repeatedly. Teresa, who attempted to fight back their attacker, Isaiah Kalebu, died in the street in the front of their home from her stab wounds. Jennifer narrowly survived the attack and suffered deep wounds herself.

Butz
Teresa Butz

Jennifer's testimony during the trial was featured in a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning article, The Bravest Woman in Seattle. The author, Eli Sanders, later went on to write a book about this event, While the City Slept – A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness. Clearly, this unthinkable act of violence in Seattle could not be forgotten.

Shortly after the 2009 attack, The Angel Band Project was founded to honor Jennifer, to memorialize Teresa, and to be a source of support through music for survivors of sexual assault.

What started as a benefit album in 2009 has led to the nation's only music therapy programming that is offered at no cost to survivors as part of their healing process. The mission of the organization is to use the power of music to provide healing, raise awareness, and promote positive social change for survivors of sexual violence.

2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the event, while also creating an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of The Angel Band Project through their tireless efforts.

Most notably, the organization performed this past November at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in conjunction with the UN Secretary General's UNITE Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Girls.

In 2014, The Angel Band Project created their groundbreaking music therapy program in St. Louis. In this program, board-certified music therapists work in small groups of teens and adult survivors as part of their healing process. In late 2016, the program expanded to include Seattle, WA, and in 2017, in collaboration with New York University's Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Center, The Angel Band Project began serving survivors of sexual violence in the greater New York City area.

Butz
Jennifer Hopper and Teresa Butz

"Music is able to contain and express the complex legacy of emotions left by such experiences for which words are not adequate," Said Ken Aigen, associate professor of Music Therapy, New York University, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Center. "And equally importantly, the act of creating music with other people is a life-embracing activity that helps survivors to reclaim their sense of self as whole and valuable human beings, something that can be suppressed, but not eliminated, by the experience of violence or abuse of any type."

The Angel Band Project's executive director, Rachel Ebeling, says, "Every two minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. That statistic indicates that much work needs to be done to support survivors from this trauma."

"The Angel Band Project is hosting this event to raise awareness on this issue and to support our life-changing music therapy programs," said Ebeling. "In the greater St. Louis area, we fund programming at Safe Connections, YWCA, Braveley, Kathy J Weinman Shelter, St. Martha's Hall, and ALIVE. Every dollar we raise at this event will fund these programs and allow for new programs to take place, which is offered at no cost to survivors."

Concert Information

The Angel Band Project
Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m.

The Sheldon
3648 Washington Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108

Webster students should use the PROMO CODE: ANGEL20. Tickets range in price from $50-$150. The discount offer will expire at midnight on Oct. 24. Tickets are available at thesheldon.org/concert-detail. Tickets range in price from $50-$150.

For further information about "The Angel Band Soundtrack," contact Rachel Ebeling, 314-240-5525 or rachel.ebeling@angelbandproject.org.

Visit AngelBandProject.org to learn more about the organization.

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