Former Orphan Composes Benefit CD to Aid Asian Children Services

The CD entitled "Remembrance" is the vehicle that Joseph offers to help bring relief to the orphanage in Thai Binh. Joseph wrote and performed the three beautiful piano compositions. His piano teacher, Tom Hoag, composed the other three songs. Liz Gessner and her mother Susan Gessner, Joseph's cousin and aunt, graciously provided the vocals that so enhanced the CD.

All proceeds will go to Asian Children Services. With your help, Joseph Manolios' first musical venture, "Remembrance" will truly make a difference in a distant land that is, to him, only a memory.

In the care of his new American parents, 9-year-old Joseph Manolios walked out the door of an orphanage in Thai Binh, a rural area of Vietnam, and set out on a journey to his new life in America. He arrived at his home in Pittsburgh in July 1997. Joseph's younger sister Katherine was adopted from the same orphanage in 1995.

More than seven years have passed. The children have thrived in their new environment, each nourishing a unique, inborn gift of creativity. Katherine is a budding artist. While Joseph shares his sister's artistic talents, his creative gift extends into the world of music, where his recent piano composition burst with energy ignited by his passion.

Joseph is hearing impaired. He attended The DePaul School for Hearing and Speech for six years. He now attends public high school.

Through his music, 16-year-old Joseph has vowed to give something back to the orphanage that sustained him during his childhood in Vietnam, an institution that now finds itself struggling without adequate recources to feed, clothes and shelter the orphans in its care. He is appreciative of all those that cared for him there and to Asian Children Services, the agency that made his adoption possible.

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