For the Love of Music

Lucy Krakow, 17, from Corte Madera, is a talented young jazz and soul singer and musician.  She has been volunteering with the Bread & Roses organization for the last 2 years.  She brings her love of music, talent as a singer/songwriter and love of inspiring others together, and has performed at organizations all over the Bay Area.

Through her experience with Bread & Roses she has entertained at Marin Services for Women in Greenbrae (a drug and alcohol rehab center), Aldersly, a senior facility in San Rafael and most recently, with her brother Roger, 21, at Our Common Ground, a teen rehab center in Redwood City. 

Bread & Roses, was founded by Mimi Farina in 1974.  The organization is based in Corte Madera, and is dedicated to uplifting the human spirit by providing free, live, quality shows to people who live in institutions or are otherwise isolated from society. 

This delightful, poised, and talented teen was eager to share her love of music with me.  I asked her when she began playing music.  She said, “I’ve been playing badly since the 5th grade, but I started getting serious about 8th grade…I just started playing when my brother started playing because I thought it was super cool and I wanted to be just like him…” 

She heard about performing with Bread & Roses because her brother’s band had done shows with the organization.  When I asked her what is was like doing her first show, she said, “It was really fun…and everyone was really into it, its definitely not like a normal concert experience…it’s a lot of give and take.  It was very fun.” 

Krakow continued, “The two main places I volunteer is Bread & Roses and every year I go to Tijuana with my Church and work at an orphanage.  I have started tying them together…we always have (at the orphanage) music nights and dance nights and everyone dances and gets into music…it’s just such a statement of how important music is in peoples’ lives…it really has an immediate affect on peoples’ attitudes…Bread & Roses really is on to something…”

Krakow received a scholarship from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music.  The first and only program of its kind, The Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music offers professional leadership training for aspiring creative music entrepreneurs.   She will be starting school there this fall and is very excited.  She told me, “I want to keep making music, keep writing music.  I don’t mind if I’m writing for other people, in fact, that’s where I find a big source of inspiration…hearing someone I really admire musically and I feel like, I want to write for them…”

As she performed an original song for me, in the room at the offices of Bread & Roses, I could hear the passion, creativity and talent of this engaging young woman. 

Before she heads to NYU in a few weeks, be sure to catch her last few performances at local restaurants.  She will be at Benissimos in Corte Madera on Thursdays, 7-9 pm and Servino in Tiburon on Wednesdays and Sundays.  Check restaurants for times and dates.

And, for more information about Bread & Roses visit their website: Bread & Roses 

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