American Idol singer and star Crystal Bowersox is coming to Columbus Wednesday for a free performance; hoping her music will help heal the mind and the body.
“I believe whole-heartedly that music is a form of medicine,” the singer told 10TV Morning Anchor Angela An. “In addition to other treatment, music can lift the overall morale of patients, which may help heal the spirit.”
Bowersox says she has no doubt the mind, body and spirit are connected.
It’s the same mission and purpose behind the Heather Pick Music Program at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, where Bowersox will perform Wednesday, March 4 at noon.
Bowersox, a native of northwest Ohio, says she first learned about the music program through her guitarist, Sam VanFossen.
“Sam lost his father to cancer several years ago,” Bowersox explained. “When I was asked to perform for the Heather Pick Music Program, it was an easy answer.”
Lorne VanFossen, a musician in his own right who was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2000, died in 2012 less than a week after this 50th birthday. He had inspired the formation of the A Christmas To Cure Cancer organization and fundraiser before he passed away from complications related to his cancer treatment. The yearly fundraiser, with the help of Sean Carney’s Blues for a Cure, started raising the seed money in 2013 to establish the Heather Pick Music Program.
Since then, the program has presented countless live, free musical performers from various styles and genres at The James lobby, along with other ambulatory sites such as OSU East, OSU Brain and Spine, the Gynecological Oncology Clinic at Mill Run, Martha Morehouse Medical Plaza and the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center.
Like almost everyone else, Bowersox says her life has been touched by cancer.
“I was on American Idol, one of the Production Assistants risked his job by asking if any of the contestants would be willing to visit his sick daughter in the hospital. She was just 8 years old. We sang together in that hospital room,” the singer recalled.
“10 years later, that little girl has become a beautiful, healthy young woman. She beat it. I don't know how much my visit had to do with it, but her parents tell me it gave her hope during the hardest time in her life. Hope - is everything,” Bowersox added.
After her Idol career, Bowersox, who has Type 1 Diabetes, has long been an advocate for children with the disease.
You can watch her live performance at the James Lobby Wednesday.
Bowersox will also appear Wednesday night at the Rumba Café just north of the Ohio State campus in Clintonville. You can get tickets to the 8 p.m. show here.
