If my formatting is incorrect, I hope a Mudelf will say or do something, but anyway,
this feature news story is too interesting to let pass.
Burlington, Vermont, is the home of the first Me2/Orchestra.
Rutland, Vermont, is well to the south of Burlington;
it is a large enough city to have its own newspaper,
the Rutland Herald, for which
Jim Lowe is a staff writer.
Lowe is the author of the article.

The Lowe Down: The Me2/Orchestra rebuilds lives -- and makes beautiful music

Jim Lowe, Rutland Herald online

Me2/ preceded the #MeToo movement by about five years. While the latter involves women's sexual mistreatment by men, the former refers to what is an equally insidious problem.
The Me2/Orchestra is a unique classical music performing organization created for people living with mental illnesses and the people who support them. It was founded in Burlington in 2011 by Ronald Braunstein, a world-class conductor whose own career was felled by mental illness.
Since, Braunstein and his wife, Caroline Whiddon, the organization's executive director, have built Me2/ Orchestras in Boston and, last year, in New Hampshire.
[ . . . ]

Unforgivably, I missed the beginnings of Me2, though I knew both Braunstein and Whiddon. When Braunstein came to take the reins of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association in 2009, I had an excellent interview with him. Braunstein was the real thing, the first American to win the First Prize Gold Medal in the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin. He had conducted major orchestras around the world, and our conversation about music was just fascinating.
So when I heard that Braunstein was being fired the following year by the VYOA, I was astonished. Everyone in the know was tight-lipped, so I had no answers. Apparently, he had done nothing terrible, as he was asked to conduct for another month. When he and Whiddon started the Me2/Orchestra, the pieces began to fall into place.

I might have caught on earlier. His pedigree was more one of a top contender for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. He also was hyper-energetic during our interview, hinting at possible [?treated?] bipolar disorder, and I wondered how the staff would like that. (I had been a psychiatric crisis worker for Washington County Mental Health for 15 years; also, I'm one of three addicts in my family.)
My next meeting with Braunstein was later that year when he was generously giving conducting tips to Dan Bruce, music director of the Burlington Civic Symphony, so I knew he was well. And then the odyssey of the Me2/Orchestra began.

"Orchestrating Change" tells that story intriguingly and entertainingly, paralleling the lives of Braunstein and members of his orchestras. The interviews are refreshingly candid and the sense of hope through music permeates the film.
The film follows a young [string] bass player struggling through hospitalizations who finds sanctuary with the orchestra. A clarinetist learns lessons about his disorder, in part because of his desire to be with the orchestra. Inspired and given strength, a young Boston oboist gets the courage to go back to graduate school where she earns her master's degree.
The very raw interviews of orchestra members and their families are heart-wrenching and heartwarming.

Braunstein's expertise as a musician, teacher and conductor provide an unmentioned but important subtext. The Me2/Orchestras are un-auditioned community orchestras, attracting a wide variety of levels. In fact, the only requirement for membership is some connection with mental illness -- in short, all of us.
However, Braunstein is able to inspire performances from this wide level of players that are not only cohesive, but often nuanced. And the musical spirit and excitement are truly inspiring.
Braunstein described the process of filming a crucial point in his life -- and the life of the orchestra -- as freeing.
"I've been out about my condition for quite a few years now," he said, "and it's been the greatest experience to hear people's responses to the film, and the poignant questions they ask about me and the orchestra."
Whiddon hopes the film reaches broader audiences with a more positive idea about what it means to live with mental illness. "One woman in a test screening came up to us and said if her son had known a group like like Me2/ existed, he might have lived. There aren't enough positive stories of people living with serious mental illness."
The Me2/Orchestras prove that music can, and does, heal. And Braunstein and Whiddon facilitate and inspire.

September 5, 2020