By MONICA YUNUS

Last year, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with a vengeance—as we all remember—the news was grim and the images harrowing. Watching my television, I felt sick to my stomach. How could this be happening in our country? What could I do that would make a difference?

I wanted to raise funds for those affected and also create a space for people to grieve. I knew that I needed to do something in the wake of the storm that would allow me to feel like an active part of our country's healing.

Sing for Hope artists, clockwise from top left: Luis Ledesma, Deborah Domanski, Randall Scarlata, Jennifer Samson, Brian Mulligan, Jennifer Aylmer, Scott Scully, Camille Zamora and Kenneth Merrill. (Photo by Sam Schultze)

I called several singer friends together and asked if they would be willing to sing on a concert to benefit the victims of Katrina. Two weeks later, in Huguenot Memorial Church in Pelham, N.Y., more than 100 people gathered for the Katrina Concert. Ten fantastic singers—colleagues of mine from the Met, Glimmerglass Opera, and the New York City Opera—sang arias, duets, and ensembles, pouring their hearts out. At the end of the night, I was enlivened by what we had done. I never imagined how easy it would be to call on friends for a cause, and how good it would feel to stand together and lift our voices for a common purpose.

My friend and fellow Juilliard alumna Camille Zamora sang on the concert that evening, and was instrumental in helping me organize the event. A decade ago, after the loss of a dear friend to AIDS, she founded a benefit concert called Sing for Hope in her hometown of Houston. Now one of the country's largest annual AIDS fund-raising concerts, the yearly event has raised more than a million dollars for men and women living with H.I.V./AIDS. Using her concert as a model for our programming and rehearsal methods (the latter jokingly referred to by us as "kamikaze opera" for the breakneck speed at which we prepared), we put the Katrina event together with an ease that surprised even us. When it came time to give the concert a name, Camille offered her simple, universally applicable Houston title: "Why don't you call it 'Sing for Hope'?"

Later that fall, inspired by this success and encouraged by our colleagues who had participated, Camille and I decided to create an organization that would unite and support artists who wish to create events that benefit humanitarian causes. With pro bono legal aid supplied by several attorney friends, the Sing for Hope Foundation was born. A nonprofit organization with a volunteer staff and roster of artists who donate their time and talent, Sing for Hope facilitates the initial connection of artists to charitable communities, and then contributes to benefit events by providing an organizational model and a network of support. Our motto is "Uniting Artists, Uniting Communities," and our emphasis is on creating benefits for extant communities in need of unity and healing (such as people living with H.I.V./AIDS, disaster survivors, or underserved children).

Baritone Lester Lynch and 12-year-old Jaela Cheeks-Lomax in last summer's "Cabaret Songs," a Sing for Hope concert benefiting Young at Arts, a children's theater music school in the Bronx. (Photo by Shawn Kaufman)

This month, our efforts will take an even more personal turn when 48 artists—Juilliard alumni and faculty all—come together in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater for "Sing for Hope: A Juilliard Vocal Arts Alumni Gala," celebrating Juilliard's newly created Sing for Hope Prize for Arts Activism and Community Outreach. The prize, made possible by a gift from the Sing for Hope Foundation, will be awarded annually to Juilliard vocalists using music for humanitarian causes. The award, and the concert itself, are the culmination of our journey launched more than a decade ago.

The Sing for Hope Prize will motivate and support arts volunteerism among Juilliard Vocal Arts students and alumni, by covering costs incurred in benefit concert production or in the creation of the applicant's chosen humanitarian outreach project. Sing for Hope projects might range from a concert in an applicant's hometown benefiting a children's arts charity (for which the award would cover travel and associated costs), to a series of concerts presenting classics from the 1920s through the '40s in assisted living facilities (for which the award would cover the cost of musical scores given to audience members for a sing-along finale). The possibilities are endless, but the constants of the Sing for Hope Prize's charitable projects are specificity and sustainability. That is, the projects funded compassionately address the specific communities for which they are designed (such as in the musical programming choices) and ideally are sustainable beyond their initial year.

Sing for Hope: A Juilliard Vocal Arts Alumni Gala Peter Jay Sharp Theater Friday, October 6, 8 p.m. See the Calendar of Events for more information.

The October 6 gala in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater will feature many of Juilliard's most prominent recent Vocal Arts graduates, including Jennifer Aylmer (who sang Bella in the world premiere of An American Tragedy at the Met), Richard Cox (Erster Geharnischter Mann in Die Zauberflöte at the Met), Michael Maniaci (Lucio Cinna in Lucio Silla at Santa Fe), Simon O'Neill (who sang the title role in Lohengrin at Covent Garden), Michael Slattery (who sang the title role in Orfeo at the Châtelet), and others. Music to be performed will include highlights of the operatic and musical theater repertoire by Bernstein, Bizet, Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Sondheim, and Verdi, as well as a world premiere by Prix de Rome-winning composer Christopher Theofanidis and Grammy-winning librettist William M. Hoffmann.

Tickets are available in the Juilliard Box Office (and are free to Juilliard students, faculty, staff, and alumni with ID). Net proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Sing for Hope Prize. For more information, please visit www.singforhope.org.

Monica Yunus (B.M. '00, M.M. '02, voice) was assisted in writing this article by Camille Zamora (M.M. '02, voice; J.O.C. 2002-04).