DeKALB – As the war in Ukraine drags on, students and faculty at NIU are looking for ways to help those affected.

The NIU School of Music will be hosting a Ukraine Benefit Concert from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Friday to encourage individuals to donate to aid organizations that focus on helping those impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The concert will be held in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall in the Music Building, 550 Lucinda Ave.

Jennalynn Cisna, a graduate student majoring in piano performance and teaching assistant at NIU, is the organizer of the event. Annie Chung, a graduate student studying music and graduate assistant of the Huskie Band, is the co-organizer.

“It originally started with Jennalynn messaging me and asking if I would conduct the Ukraine national anthem,” Chung said. “She just had the desire to support with what’s going on.” 

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. As of today, it has been a month since the invasion. 

According to a statement by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on March 23, “based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many innocent civilians have been killed and wounded and structures such as hospitals and schools have been destroyed, according to the statement.

“I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do,” Cisna said. 

Cisna said that she picked four aid organizations to speak on and go into detail about during the concert. The four aid organizations include Mercy Corps, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Direct Relief and Save the Children.

“I’ve picked these organizations specifically with a goal in mind to have organizations that really put a large majority of donations towards the actual cause with very little sort of taken off the top for marketing or for salaries and stuff like that,” Cisna said.

Due to university regulations, cash donations cannot be accepted. All donations will be made online and will be given directly to the aid organizations.

“We’ve got over a dozen different performances… it’s really a huge different range of different performers we’ve got everything from musicians performing world-music genres,” Cisna said. “We’ve got a jazz performance and then several different classical or neoclassical contemporary performances as well… and we are going to do that initial idea of a performance of the Ukraine national anthem, strings and winds, and Annie’s going to conduct that.”

The majority of the performers are graduate and undergraduate NIU students. Gregory Beyer, the director of percussion studies, will also be performing a piece at the benefit concert, Cisna said.

“Attending this concert will make you feel as if you are part of a greater whole… joining together in unification through this concert and through all these different musics and everything, knowing that we are doing just a little bit of something,” Cisna said.

The benefit concert is free to attend and registration is not required. If you are unable to attend in person, you can live stream the concert on the NIU website. 

“Making music speaks louder than words at times,” Chung said.