By Michele Leight, Founding Director, Ashraya-New York (http://www.ashraya-ny.org)

Rose Bapier Productions will present "Enchanting Moments - Scent of a Rose" at the Fabbri Mansion, House of the Redeemer, at 7 East 95th Street in New York City at 3PM and 7PM on September 25, 2005.

A third of the concert proceeds will benefit the Baton Rouge Woman's Hospital in Louisiana, which was the clearing house for 121 babies rescued from hospitals in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Most of the babies were newborns and premature. Many have been discharged or transferred elsewhere but 32 remained, most in a neonatal intensive care unit that normally has about 60 to 70 such babies at any one time but now is caring for 92 infants. The hospital has established contact with the families of all the babies and there are reunions daily.

Dr. Steven Spedale, the hospital's chief neo-natalist and medical director, said he was grateful for the chance to care for the babies, but added that the evacuation had not gone smoothly. University Hospital had no electricity and could do no laboratory work or X-rays that were important to verify that IV catheters and endotracheal tubes were placed correctly. Despite the disorder, no infants or pregnant women died during the evacuations.

Families are in need of transportation to see their babies and Women's Hospital has established a Disaster Relief Fund to provide support for the patients and their families. The address of the fund is Women's Hospital, Disaster Relief Fund, 9000 Airline Highway, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70815. For more information about the fund, call 225-924-8977.

In good times and bad, the arts are lifeblood to those of us who cannot imagine life without the daily healing they bring. The arts give the possibility of hope and renewal.

It is increasingly noticeable that music emerges in times of disaster - to heal the devastated and distressed - and increasingly to raise money for them. Whether it is at massive scale rock concerts, intimate and elegant soirées of the highest calibre, or at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, music is generating both beauty and hard cash for those who have been dealt life's harshest blows.

Patronage, support and hard cash is also vital for artists to continue to give us the beauty we need so desperately as well as to sustain those who have lost everything. It is no secret that most artists - legions of musicians, actors, writers, singers and creative folk - live on the edge of a financial precipice.

Music-propelled fundraisers are a validation of the power of the arts to sustain those of us who must sit on the sidelines and watch as a natural disaster separates families, children from parents, the elderly and frail, the hospitalized and endangered, the pets standing forlorn on stoops and porches waiting for someone to return home to feed them. We know as we watch from the couch that this may not happen. But we must get up from the couch and do something to help our fellow citizens in need. There is always a way to help.

The concert at Fabbri Mansion September 25, 2005 will be presented twice, at 3PM and and 7PM. Works by Piazzolla, Monteverdi, Ravel, Saint-Saens, De Falla, Paganini, Tchaikovsky, Scarlatti, John Williams, Martinu and Gershwin will be performed as well as tributes to Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong.

Concert tickets are $25. For more information about the concert tickets, call 212-595-6232, or visit http://www.rosebapier.org. Credit Cards Accepted.