Music and Technology Unite

 

By Allanah Wills

With two sons who have autism, a Tecumseh mother is pairing up with a Windsor event planning and production company to merge music with technology in hopes of making a difference.

Jessica Szucki, founder of iPads for Autism and Scott Rawlings, president of Magic Enterprises Productions will bring the second annual We Will Rock Blue concert presented by Biz X magazine to the Chrysler Theatre later this month. A Beatles tribute band will perform and the money raised will go towards Szucki’s charity.

The idea for iPads For Autism came to Szucki while watching her children, Cooper, 2, and Dryden, 4, struggle with various aspects of the neurological disorder.

“We started it the year Dryden was diagnosed. My dad bought him an iPad and saw the difference that it made in his fine motor skills, the beginning of speech and the comprehension of the alphabet. He was learning and learning fast,” Szucki said.

She soon learned other people in her autism support group also noticed the benefits of the iPad which allowed her to give away the first tablet.

“I heard a story of a women in one of the autism groups. She was trying to find ways to raise money to get an iPad for her grandson,” said Szucki. “She wanted to use it to start teaching him feelings. He was having a hard time explaining how he was feeling about things. We pooled our resources, we did some fundraising and we surprised them.”

Since then she has given away 11 iPads in two years, a number she admits is low but a good start for her busy schedule. After an out of the blue phone call from Rawlings asking her to participate in We Will Rock Blue, the concert is shaping up to become Szucki’s largest charity donation yet.

“I saw this mom doing all this work and thought, ‘let me help out’ .If the show’s sold out, we can expect over $5,000,” said Rawlings. “Plus merchandise, it’s hard to say, it could be up to $10,000.”

The performance by the Ontario tribute band, The Fab Four, will take place on Oct. 24. Rawlings’ inspiration for the concert came from wanting to make autism awareness more accessible.

“We wanted to do something for the average person that may not be able to afford the $100 ticket to the autism gala,” said Rawlings. “That’s how we came up with We Will Rock Blue with Windsor being a blue collar town plus blue being the colour for autism.”

Last year’s concert featured a Queen tribute band but Rawlings thinks the music of the Beatles will also be a perfect fit for a benefit concert.

“There’s a lot of good catch phrases like ‘All You Need Is Love.’ I thought it’d be a good mix,” he said.

While Szucki’s first two sons were named after hockey players, she took a different, now coincidental path with her 15-month- old and named him Lennon.

Tickets can be ordered at www.wewillrockblue.com