“The Soloist,” by author Steve Lopez, tells the true story of the friendship between two gifted men – one a homeless mentally ill musician and the other an award-winning journalist and columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — This year’s book selection for Michigan State University’s and the city of East Lansing’s One Book, One Community program has sparked the idea for a musical instrument donation drive to benefit MSU’s new Community Music School in Detroit.

In the book, “The Soloist,” Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez meets Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a Juilliard-trained musician who is homeless and playing Beethoven on a two-stringed violin in a noisy traffic tunnel.

When Lopez writes a column for the Times about the struggling street musician, instruments of all sorts are donated to Ayers to support his talent and playing.

MSU’s College of Music is opening a new Community Music School in Detroit, modeled after the highly successful Community Music School in East Lansing. The open house will be 4 to 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at the school, 3408 Woodward Ave. in Detroit.

The college is seeking donations of musical instruments of all kinds—strings, winds, brass and percussion—to be used by students at the Community Music School in Detroit. Donated instruments are tax-deductible and should be in good condition.

The MSU Community Music School, the College of Music’s outreach division, brings music education and music therapy to those of all ages and abilities in Greater Lansing and Metro Detroit.

“A donated instrument can be meaningful to a student who doesn’t have access to one,” said Rhonda Buckley, Community Music School executive director and associate dean for outreach and engagement. “There are many students in Metro Detroit whose lives will be better because they have access to an instrument.”

All donated instruments will be put in the hands of young musicians who do not have the resources to purchase or rent their own instruments.

Instruments can be dropped off at the CMS-East Lansing office, 841 Timberlane St. in East Lansing. For more information, contact Buckley at (517) 432-7371 or visit http://www.music.msu.edu/outreach.

The annual OBOC program, sponsored by the city of East Lansing and MSU, encourages the city-university community to read the same book and come together to discuss it in a variety of settings. The book is an assigned reading for all incoming MSU freshmen. For more information and to view a calendar of upcoming OBOC events, visit www.onebook.msu.edu.

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