Music breaks barriers with Melodic Connections

Audience members sing along to Journey and Bruno Mars. They sway to B.B. King and traditional jazz standards. Concerts by the students of Melodic Connections defy stereotypes and create bonds through rhythm and joy.”It’s about the enjoyment of the experience,” says Betsey Zenk Nuseibeh, founder and executive director of the non-profit. She says the best part of the shows, which highlight the talents of students with a wide range of disabilities, is the expression of excitement, of accomplishment, on students’ faces. “I try to make it an interactive experience.”Some of the guitars have stickers under the strings that guide student fingers. Others have the aptly named easy chord adaptive device. Keyboards have color-coded keys. Students use color-coded sheet music. Nuseibeh, a music therapist and special education teacher, started Melodic Connections in 2008 after watching the dramatic transformation of one of her students with autism, Latron Dodd, at the keys of a piano. Dodd, a piano prodigy, received a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati, where he now takes private lessons at the College Conservatory of Music. Other students learn typing skills after learning color coding on keyboards. A silent student began to sing. Another stubborn eater began to take bites to the beat of a drum. Music, Nuseibeh knows, offers a gateway to more than just melodies. She founded Melodic Connections to provide an affordable way to give anyone who needed it access to music therapy-based services. She now teaches more than 40 students aged 7 through 65 and has watched them perform at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club downtown, the Southgate House in Newport and Union Terminal, along with other art galleries, clubs and museums.While the lessons move students forward in musical and practical ways, the performances bring students and their parents a different kind of satisfaction, Nuseibeh says. As performers throw their hands in the air and say, “rock and roll,” their parents watch, breathing in the sweetness of success in a space where their children always get a standing ovation.Do Good:• Give a guitar. Melodic Connections accepts donations of guitars and keyboards for students.• Join the email list. Get the scoop on the latest concert information and more. A Blue Wisp show in April and a Cincinnati Art Museum show in May are already in the works!• Like Melodic Connections on Facebook. Watch videos, scroll scrapbooks and find out more about the organization online. By Elissa YanceyPhoto of Betsey Zenk Nuseibeh working with students courtesy of Melodic Connections.