Four-day music festival to bring bands and community together, aid nonprofits that help immigrants

Ted Cmarada and Susan Spangler have heard people say, “I wish I could do something in these troubled times” many times over the past seven months.

They have an answer: Buy a ticket and come to All Together Now!, a four-day music festival for Pittsburgh’s immigrant community that begins Thursday and runs through Sunday. All proceeds, including T-shirt sales and donations, will benefit the Collaborative for Immigrant Impact, a new coalition of nonprofit organizations formed to respond and offer help to immigrants in the region.

The 15 shows by 30 bands at 11 different venues will stretch from the Strip District to Hampton, then Lawrenceville, Squirrel Hill, Homestead, South Side, Millvale and Blawnox before concluding Sunday at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church and Club Café. The eclectic lineup of bands and musicians – they play bluegrass, blues, swing to Irish, New Orleans, R&B and classic rock as well as polka music – was intentional, Cmarada said.

“It’s going to be a real multicultural celebration but a celebration of community as well,” he said.

All the bands and venues have donated their skills, talents and space, plus they are helping with ticket sales. Those started slowly but have been building this past week with media attention. The couple advise those interested in attending to secure tickets online to ensure they will have seats rather than paying at the door. Events range from free with a request for donations up to $30.

The married therapists, community activists and folk musicians said the 40^th anniversary of Live Aid this year became an inspiration after President Donald Trump assumed office in January and the cuts and claw backs to immigrant services and intense focus on closing the borders became reality for him, he said. They started planning the much smaller-in-scale festival in February.

The first thought was to hold a single benefit concert. Then the two started talking to bands and venues. Spangler said one band after another and one venue after another said yes to them, and it grew from a concert to a festival.

Buffalo Rose (Courtesy of All Together Now!)

In talking about the work to plan this with a small group of volunteers and assistance from the Jewish Community and Family Services and Casa San Jose, organizations they have volunteered and worked with, they repeat that the response overall has been heartwarming. JCFS built the festival website and ticketing page, Cmarada said, that launched back in the spring. More volunteers will be on hand at every performance and event.

“We weren’t surprised but so heartened by the goodness of our neighbors,” Spangler said.

“We wanted the character of it all to be that people were completely moved and make the sacrifice of whatever it was to be part of it,” Cmarada said. “Even as [the planning] has played out, this is a gathering of the community, willing to stand up for our neighbors for justice and to do the right thing. We wanted it to be a commitment on all ends.”

The couple follow Buffalo Rose, a band that performs at the Original Pittsburgh Winery on the festival’s opening day. “They were the first group we approached,” she said, adding that she has been delighted to see that band grow over time. And they belong to Joy Street, offshoot of members of Devilish Merry, another band in the opening day festival lineup at Ruckus Gallery & Café in Millvale.

Spangler plays accordion and mandolin, while Cmarada is a percussionist and plays blue harmonica. He said his wife is the real musician. “It’s not equal,” he added.

The 3 p.m. Sunday gathering at East Liberty Church originally stood as the festival’s closing event. It will feature multicultural performances of music and dance from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil and Bhutan; storytelling of the immigrant experience in Pittsburgh; speakers from the Collaborative for Immigrant Impact, a colorful array of community richness; and an address and special proclamation by Mayor Ed Gainey, according to the website.

Then some young musicians approached them and wanted to join in, so Heading North, Turtle Park and The Book Club have added to the lineup a Sunday night concert at the Club Café on the South Side, which held a grand reopening this past weekend. Doors open at 6 p.m. there with the show starting at 7, according to the schedule and ticketing page of the festival website.

Spangler and Cmarada came to know the region’s immigrant community better about four years ago when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and a sudden influx of Afghan refugees made their way here. Organizations they knew, like Hello Neighbor and Bethany Christian Services, opened their eyes, she said, to the incredible hardships immigrants face and the enormous cultural adjustment they need to make.

Hello Neighbor is one of the 18 Pittsburgh-based organizations in the Collaborative for Immigrant Impact network that serve as a critical safety net for over 20,000 immigrants in our community, according to the festival website. Those nonprofits provide “immigrants access [to] legal services, housing, health care, education, English classes, career development, food assistance and more, ensuring our immigrant neighbors have the opportunity to thrive.”

Cmarada said the couple own rental units and stepped up to start housing people, something other landlords may have been loath to do because the newly arrived Afghans had no credit or jobs. The effect: overwhelming.

“We have been so blessed with the experience of housing immigrants,” he said. “They truly have been our best tenants, conscientious, and they take good care of our property.”

Getting to know those who arrived in this country out of desperation but eager to start a new life, they both said, has had additional benefits.

“Every tenant has taught us,” she said. “It has been so heartwarming.” One example she offered is within a building of theirs with three apartments, the Afghan families housed there have helped each other build community. That was despite arriving with nothing and facing so much ahead of them to tackle as they rebuilt their lives in a foreign country.

“The cultural adjustment is enormous,” she said. “They have to figure out the things we take for granted.” That includes learning English, finding jobs, caring for their physical space and building a community here within their own cultural group. That has resulted in strong ethnic-based communities within Pittsburgh, she explained.

One important thing to the couple is that the primary beneficiary of all of this effort is the children of these families. “Seeing these children happy and safe that they really belong, it is really heartwarming,” she said. “This community can help them … this concert can help them achieve that.”