Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Marshall Crenshaw, Bettye LaVette and Martha Redbone are just a few of the luminaries coming out to support the launch of the Nic Pagano LGBTQIA+ Scholarship Fund at a benefit concert at The City Winery in NYC on January 26 at 8 PM.
The organization was created to honor the memory of Nic Pagano, son of veteran NYC drummer/producer/bandleader Rich Pagano, best known for his work with the Fab Faux. The charity enables ongoing assistance for families and individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community in need of financial help after agreeing to treatment for a substance use disorder. Pagano and his wife, Karen Marks, have partnered with The Release Recovery Foundation and Caron Treatment Centers to present the benefit event, entitled 1st Annual “Songs of Deep Emotion and Bright Light.” Tickets are on sale now here.
Cash, Earle, Crenshaw and LaVette are being joined by other artists including Amy Helm, Kate Pierson, Rachel Yamagata, Martha Redbone and Willie Nile and additional national and local music acts will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Each artist will perform a short set that illustrates an emotional and compromising element and/or a level of promise and faith. The flow will range from ‘melancholy blue to electric heat’. Pagano will serve as musical director.
In addition to raising proceeds from ticket sales, the event will feature an auction segment of coveted music-related photographs, including donations by Mark Seliger, William Coupon, Bob Gruen, The Gordon Parks Foundation and more. The auction will take place thanks to the outreach of Karen Marks, director of Howard Greenberg Gallery, one of the premiere photographic galleries in the world. Phillips Auction House has generously offered to facilitate.
One month prior to his accidental death due to fentanyl poisoning on July 2, 2021, Nic and his parents were eating lunch near the sober house that he was residing in at the time. At the lunch, the conversation turned to the plight of the LGBTQIA+ community and its fear of ostracization and assumption of lack of communal inclusion within the treatment world. Nic, leaning to an eventual career in social work, singled out the transgender community in particular for its marginalization. Unfortunately, this month’s hateful incident in Colorado is a clear indication that the stigma, fear and threats against the gay community need to be confronted, disarmed and dispelled.
As referenced above, the Release Recovery Foundation and Caron Treatment Centers have partnered in the creation of the Nic Pagano Scholarship Fund which is based at Caron Treatment Center in Pennsylvania. This scholarship aims to improve access to care for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Since its inception in the fall of 2021, the Nic Pagano LGBTQIA Scholarship Fund has awarded six financial scholarships to clients in need of substance use treatment. Services also address stigma, heterosexism, internalized homophobia, and discrimination as well as addiction. Over the last 18 months overdose deaths are up 25% in New York City with the LGBTQIA community as a group up 30% due to lack of treatment information or simply a fear of being different.
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