Next week – world-class musicians from across the globe will descend on the Emerald Coast for a week of free concerts.

Many of the fifty or so concerts will occur at venues where many people don’t have much access to live music.

But two of them – one on January 16th at the Fort Walton Beach Civic Auditorium and the other at Crosspoint Church in Niceville on the 17th are both free and open to the public. Both performances are open to anyone and begin at 6 p.m.

The program is the brainchild of Dr. Bob Morell, Dr. Venita Morell, and a world-renowned concert pianist, Alon Goldstein.

Goldstein, who has worked tirelessly to bring in talent to perform at the shows that take place in special needs care facilities to elementary schools in low-income areas, had no connection to the Emerald Coast before 2016. The Israeli-born Goldstein only had a mission – to bring music to the masses.

Goldstein determined this mission after becoming an American Citizen in 2008. “When I became a citizen of this wonderfully, beautifully, incredible, challenging, frustrating, fantastic country – I was trying to find a role. What am I supposed to do? Is my role only to play Carnegie Hall or do I have a much bigger role?” He determined it was the latter – and told his manager to book him in two plaves wherever he went: at a money-making venue, and a place where he could do community outreach.

After eight years of ad-hoc outreach – he met Bob and Venita after a concert at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center at Northwest Florida State College. They created a plan to bring a weeklong sprint of concerts and performances to various audiences who might not otherwise have a chance to see highly-rated performers like Goldstein and formed the Emerald Coast Music Alliance.

The new non-profit started with seven shows in the first year. In their second year, they went to 17. “We noticed that we live in a fairly rural area here, and while we had the means to take our kids to Tallahassee for professional music lessons and to travel to places like Carnegie Hall to expose them to music, other people in our community don’t have that opportunity,” Venita Morrell said.

The ECMA met with success and continued to grow as Alon recruited more and more talent to grace the spotlight in places as different as Van Butler Elementary and a home for special needs home for adults in Marianna.

Goldstein remembers that first performance in Marianna well – because of how it started. “We started the concert there and only three people were in the audience. I felt a bit embarrassed [for] my colleague that I brought them from all over to play for three people,” he said, “But about three or four minutes into the concert, suddenly, we realized that there were people behind the door peeking. Then they started to come in, because they thought, ‘well, it’s not so dangerous listening to music.'” By the end of their concert, Goldstein remembers seeing a crowd of about 75 people in the room listening to their playing. He smiled as he recounted the manager of the facility coming to him and telling him that a group had not ever formed in this size because of the individual disabilities. “He said, you know, I’ve been here for 25 years, and I’ve never seen these people sit together.”