Photo: Olivia Singer
A group of aspiring young musicians in Boston just had the opportunity to share a stage with one of the biggest musical artists in the world Saturday, when Ed Sheeran crashed their recital.
The singer-songwriter dropped in on the event at the Tobin Community Center to collaborate with the youth of the Boston Music Project on his hit song “Eyes Closed.” He then offered tickets to Saturday night’s concert at Gillette Stadium to the members of the organization and their families. Sheeran also made sure to shake the hand of every performer onstage and carved out a generous amount of time for selfies and autographs before heading back to Foxborough for night two of his back-to-back sold-out stadium concerts.
The recital itself had been pulled together in a matter of just days, after Boston Music Project Executive Director Christopher Schroeder received a call from Kiss 108 earlier in the week.
“Our friends at Kiss 108 reached out to us and let us know that Atlantic Records was interested in collaborating with Ed Sheeran and Boston Music Project. We were able to pull together a full orchestra of youth and teaching artists.”
The young musicians then had just two days to learn the music and an hour and a half of rehearsal time to practice. All the while, they still had no idea their a-list guest was coming to share the stage. Sheeran was clearly impressed, as he was quick to compliment the group on their abilities. Schroeder was thankful to the singer-songwriter for helping him instill a valuable lesson in the aspiring musicians of his organization.
“This makes it real for the kids in a lot of ways. You practice your scales, you practice your music, but, sometimes, kids ask ‘but, why? Why do I have to practice this?’ Just to develop that skill to be able to communicate with another person through your instrument and to develop the skill to be able to read music in a short amount of time. It created this beautiful moment where an artist like Ed Sheeran comes to town and, within two days, we were able to put a full concert together featuring him and some local artists like Miranda Rae, as well as some of the incredible teaching artists that we have at Boston Music Project.”
You can check out more content from Ed's surprise visit on our Instagram.