Last night, on a beautiful spring evening, we celebrated the launch of Scales to Scalpels with friends and members of the orchestra with a reading/performance. The site was at Carriage House Violins in Newton, a space generously donated to us by Chris Reuning, an old friend and cellist of the Longwood Symphony.  The new space is stunning - a restored mill, with original pinewood floors and beautiful high ceilings. CHV has a 50 seat concert hall where the reading and performance took place

Thanks to Karyn Wang, Nancy Chane and Lisa Barr, there was more than enough sangria and delicious food to go around.

The reading itself included performances of Mozart, Ibert and Elgar played by the characters in the book.

It was so wonderful to share the evening with old friends; Gerald and Aideen Zeitlin were there - now retired, they are the perfect combination of music and medicine. Gerald was an anesthesiologist and Aideen a violin teacher and conductor at the New England Conservatory who taught thousands of children (including my own) to love music.
Writer Robert Viagas drove up from New York to join in the festivities. A prolific writer, Robert has published 17 books for Playbill Magazine. His special talent was to successfully capture the characters of the passionate, fascinating medical musicians that made up the book.

Robert Viagas, Michael Barnett and Lisa Barr

Last week, I gave readings of Scales to Scalpels at two bookstores, the first at New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton and the second at The Harvard Coop in Cambridge.

I opened each reading with the Allemande from Bach's G major Suite No. 1 - it was a way for all of us to breathe in harmony for a moment. Not only was this moment calming for those gathered in the audience, it was also calming for me.

I was so touched that many friends came to the reading, including Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program physician Dr. Jim O'Connell. Jim and I go back 20 years, when Longwood Symphony Orchestra played its first Healing Art of Music concert with the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.

Next Thursday I'll be giving a lecture at the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School, and I was surprised and happy to see displays about my talk at the Harvard Medical Center Coop and at the Library itself. 
What's thrilling about all of this is - it isn't about me, but a new opportunity to further the dialogue about the importance of the

Open Road Media spent 4 days interviewing filming musicians in the Longwood Symphony during preparations for our March 17 performance. Here's their promotional video for the e-book version of Scales to Scalpels

http://www.openroadmedia.com/authors/lisa-wong.aspx

As we prepare for our 3rd Longwood Symphony Gala, I'm reminded of the first event in 2006 when we asked 12 artists to create art from violins. The 12 Visual Violins were remarkably unique pieces of art. We had a chance to interview some of the artists, as well as some of musicians in the LSO who devote their lives to caring with patients with cancer. The funds we raised that evening supported seven cancer care centers around the city.