Ridge Students Give Back to Community Through Music

Basking Ridge, NJ -- Four Basking Ridge High School students are coming together to give back to the community through music.

Albert Gu, a freshman at Ridge High School and a student at Manhattan School of Music Precollege for piano, along with his friends Daniel Woo, Jimmy Yu and Brian Yoon created the Basking Ridge Chapter of AYLUS (The Alliance of Youth Leaders in the United States).

The chapter is part of a national non-profit organization AYLUS, which promotes the development of its members’ creativity, leadership, and initiative, through the planning and execution of volunteer projects that aim at benefiting their communities, according to its site.

“I created this chapter with my friends because we thought it would be a good way to give back to the community,” said Gu. “Many of my peers are talented musicians, but for the most part we only perform in very serious and competitive settings. I think that we're all at a stage where we want to use our music for more than just competitions, and these performances would provide us that opportunity.”

They started the Basking Ridge chapter on March 16.

“We believe that music is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with an audience and it would be amazing if we could spread our love of music to others in the community,” the Basking Ridge students wrote on their chapter page.

As their first act of giving back, their chapter will be performing at the Chelsea Senior Living Center in Warren on June 11 at 2:15 p.m.

The concert will consist of mostly of classical music performed by high school students, primarily from Ridge High School.

“I think that senior living centers are a great venue for these types of performances because it's a great way to get the elderly engaged in music,” Gu said. “My grandparents live in a senior citizen center and they're always really excited when they have outside entertainment. Also, they love to meet young kids. I feel that this would be a meaningful beginning to our chapter.”

For more information on the chapter visit http://aylus.org/branches/basking-ridge-nj/

(Pictured from clockwise from top left - Albert Gu, Brian Yoon, Daniel Woo and Jimmy Yu.)