To the Editor:

Room to Read’s Central NJ Chapter would like to thank all involved for supporting our benefit concert, A World of Music, to help fund our programs in literacy and gender equity.  We thank our sponsor, Addteq, Inc., and  our audience. We also thank the Princeton Regional School System for the rental of the Trego-Biancosino Auditorium at PHS, and we celebrate and thank our wonderful musicians.  On Sunday, Sept. 11, our audience heard Princeton soprano Jenna Rose Venturi sing the National Anthem, followed by 11 young women from Princeton HS’s own Cloud Nine, Lauren Almstead, Leah Hirschman, Talya Inbar, Annie Kim, Lauren Morelli, Maisie Ryle, Ella Shatzky, Natalia Thomas, Nina Tillmann, Francesca Verge, and Heather Wertenbaker. The program continued with an exploration of Maya literature, music and poetry in Spanish, Maya and English by John Burkhalter III, Carlos Hernandez Peña and Berta Rivas Harvey.  Their Words and Music from the Land of the Jaguar brought an international and historic depth to the afternoon’s program. The quartet, Nadam-Serenity in Sound, played music from the carnatic tradition of South India, and Toronto’s Neeraj Prem, a sitar virtuoso, played music from the northern Indian tradition. Our music came from East and West, and from many of the countries of North America.

The concert helped fund local language publishing in Asia and Africa, scholarships for girls in ten countries, and the construction of schools and school libraries.  For more information about Room to Read’s work, please visitwww.rooomtoread.org, or search for Room to Read’s  You Tube channel.  Please also visit Anne Reeve’s CONNECT show this fall on princetontv.org for a discussion of Room to Read’s activities in Princeton.  Volunteers are welcome through www.roomtoread.org/chapters.

We invite all to a Wed, November 30 evening book launch at Princeton Public Library for Recipes Worth Reading, a community cookbook  that supports Room to Read’s work.

Sarah Branon

Ranjana Rao

Nicole Smith

Central NJ Chapter, Room to Read