Breaking the Silence on HIV

I break the silence with music, how do you break it? I love music! I cannot remember a time when I was not curious about how to play it, compose it, arrange it, or how to conduct it. Having had the opportunity to work with many great artists, I still have the curiosity and the need to discover how to create and play music. To this end, I have created multidisciplined productions for The Silence Is Broken HIV awareness campaign. Through the creative and performing arts and a sustained media campaign-music, dance, poetry, visual art, and design-we are uplifting the vibration of the world and lending an inspired and thoughtful hand to effect change. I believe that being creative opens the door to possibility and answers that can help us all become better selves and halt the spread of HIV. At The Silence Is Broken we are demonstrating the healing effects of music and story and we invite all people to participate. Every idea is important. We hope that through our DVD’s, Blue Ray Discs, and our concert video downloads we will quicken the hearts and minds of every citizen to break the silence around HIV and AIDS. We also invite you to act by sharing our work with others in your networks. Proceeds from the sale of our work goes to producing the twelve concerts in our series and giving away sales to community based organizations (CBOs) throughout the United States. With our concert series we are creating awareness about HIV, the silent and relentless killer, settling into communities of color at an unprecedented rate. We are educating, advocating testing, and we are giving away our money to strengthen CBO’s so that they have the resources necessary to continue carrying out their missions. We began traveling the fifty states to interview executive directors from HIV/AIDS CBO’s to hear their stories and learn about how and why they do the work they do. We videotape our interviews and post them at www.thesilenceisbroken.com. Please watch for new interviews beginning March 22, 2010. I break the silence through music, how do you break it? Patrick