One Song Benefit Concert
Donald Fritzges, April 9, 2026
EVENT OVERVIEW
One Song was an evening of music, storytelling, and creative expression held on Friday, May 15 in Bel Air, Maryland. The all-ages event centered around the power of creative expression as a pathway to mental health awareness, healing, and human connection.
At the heart of the evening was a live performance by Big Infinite, building on the powerful foundation created during last year’s inaugural event. This year’s program expanded to include a curated group of guest artists who shared both their work and the personal stories behind it—highlighting the deep connection between creativity, emotional truth, and mental health.
The intention of One Song was to create a multi-dimensional artistic experience where music, visual art, and storytelling came together to foster openness, reduce stigma, and build genuine community connection. Through vulnerability and creative expression, the event invited attendees into a shared space of reflection, inspiration, hope, and support.
Big Infinite began as Fiction 20 Down, quickly gaining momentum with national tours, industry buzz, and a Top 10 iTunes charting release, along with honors like “Breakout Artist of the Year” at the Maryland Music Awards. But everything changed when frontman Jordan Lally lost his father to suicide. Stepping away from the industry, the band returned with a renewed purpose—creating raw, vulnerable music rooted in truth and healing. Reemerging as Big Infinite, they now use their music and their “Power of Expression” program to support mental health awareness and suicide prevention, performing at schools, conferences, and community events with a mission centered on connection, self-love, and collective healing.
FEATURED MUSICIANS
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Maryland from age five,
Dami was introduced to music early by her mother, a piano teacher, she began piano at two before discovering her passion for cello at nine. She studied at the Peabody Preparatory and earned a B.A. in Cello Performance with an emphasis in Musicology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dami later deepened her connection to her heritage by studying Korean music with KPAAA and earning a Master’s degree in Korean Musicology from Seoul National University.
Today, Dami teaches a private cello studio, leads Korean drumming workshops in the DC/Metro area, and performs as a versatile session cellist for Baltimore-area artists. She remains dedicated to the arts community, serving as a board member of The Columbia Orchestra and the Asian Arts and Culture Center.
Joe Scala is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who haunts Baltimore City’s stages, stoops, and late-night jams, playing multiple shows a month across a handful of acts he genuinely loves. His songs arrive like letters from a friend who got lost somewhere beautiful and terrifying — and the first time a crowd sang one back to him, he knew he’d never stop chasing that feeling. He’s part of a tight-knit Baltimore music community where collaboration is the whole point — friends writing, playing, and showing up for each other. Tonight he’s grateful to share a few songs with you.
FEATURED VISUAL ARTISTS
I think I’ve always wanted to create. The constant daydreams that played out in my mind, usually manifesting as superheroes fighting their way across my algebra assignments. Textbooks wrapped in brown paper bags, a perfect blank canvas, were quickly filled with any monster, alien, or superhero whose world I was visiting in my mind. The explosively colored, action-filled world of printed comic books was irresistible, providing regular dopamine hits. Those pages not only fueled my imagination but also guided my values as I grew up.
But then something happened. I got older and put my art in a box, using none of it while pursuing a clinical psychology degree and later only peeking into the box as a career graphic designer. In 2015, my mental health fell into a dark pit. Rebuilding who I was from that despair got me to return that old box. If the “adult” way wasn’t working, where was the harm in letting the kid back out to play? I started illustrating again. For fun. For me. And realized how much I needed it. Now it plays a huge role in keeping me going. When the dark thoughts come back, and they do sometimes, I create. If I have a story I want to read. I create it. Now, illustrating is a huge part of my life. I’ve illustrated 4 children’s books for a puppy rescue, called The Adventures of Puppy Brian. I volunteer illustrate for the Superhero Project, a non-profit that turns children impacted by illness or disabilities into superheroes. And coming full circle, I’m now writing and illustrating my OWN comic book. Being able to express myself through art is incredibly powerful and an essential part of who I am now.
Shifting between classic painting and tactile mixed media pieces,
Jo considers her work to be led by an internal "art roulette." With unending curiosity that feeds her exploration of various subjects and media, Jo challenges her creative boundaries and assumptions whenever she can for the sake of evoking subjective, emotional reaction and nostalgic connection. Jo aims to create art that speaks to viewers if only by bringing to life the narrative beauty within the subtle and the fleeting, under-appreciated ordinary.
Jo graduated from Mount St. Mary's University with a BA in Fine Art in 2011, after studying fine art and film at the Carver Center for Arts & Technology in Towson, MD. Experiencing the beginning of the pandemic while pregnant rekindled her artistic practice, as it became a safe outlet with which to filter a growing awareness and suspicion of the unknown. Since then her work has been featured in several local and online exhibitions, including a 2022 solo exhibition in Baltimore dedicated to bringing awareness to women’s mental health through a journalistic series of portraits. Jo is based in bucolic Freeland, Maryland, where she celebrates life with her husband, young daughter and beloved dog.
Joan Henderson Hodous is a lifelong Harford County resident, well-known for her vibrant history as an educator, artist, mother, hostess, poet, women’s rights advocate, entrepreneur, world traveler, and supporter of the arts. Her artistic creations reflect facets of her life, often inspired by her travels, inspirations, and life experiences.
Clayton Appleby
Kira San Juan
Lisa McGann - On A Day Such as This was created and written by Lisa McGann, also known as Claire’s mom, also Mollie and Fiona’s mom and to her grandchildren she is Omi.
She is a fellow traveler on the road of life. She writes prose and poetry and creates different forms of art to wrap her brain around questions that have no answers. Her art and words are an outward expression of all she prays and meditates on. She believes her best work is done in collaboration with the Creator of the Universe.
