Smith: So often, the music starts and light comes on in their eyes

Big surprise: Sonoma County has become a hotbed in a quest to spark an awakening in the minds of some of our most forlorn and withdrawn elders through the magic of music.

A couple of major public events - a film gala at the Green Music Center and a full-blown rock concert in Sebastopol - will advance the work of a man who has watched lost, old eyes brighten as familiar songs loaded into a tiny iPod reach the ears of a nursing home resident with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or simply no longer a connection to the here and now.

Dan Cohen frequently sees such seniors raise their long-drooped heads, smile, sing and become animated and engaged as the music they once loved streams back into their minds through headphones. His discoveries are chronicled, gloriously, in the documentary, “Alive Inside.”

A screening of the film is the centerpiece of what looks to be a heart-charging evening at the new Schroeder Hall at Sonoma State University.

Filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett will be there for Q&A after the showing. He’ll share the stage with some extraordinary local kids.

Several seventh graders of The Healdsburg School will share reflections and discoveries from a project that involves meeting elderly residents of the Healdsburg Senior Living retirement community and observing what happens when they’re given a personalized iPod and listen once again to the music that was the soundtrack to their lives.

Also at the SSU recital hall Thursday, Claire Rumpler, a junior at Healdsburg High, will show the short video she’s made about the phenomenon of “Alive Inside.”

“It’s a whole evening. It’s not just the screening,” said co-host Josie Gay, whose film festival, “What’s Up Doc,” introduced the documentary to Sonoma County last summer. Ticket information is at whatsupdocfilms.org.

Gay vows, “It’s going to be an experience.”

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THE ROCK CONCERT happens March 20 and features Clan Dyken of Calaveras County, praised by Wavy Gravy as “one of the greatest rock and roll bands in the free world.”

Bringing the show to the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center is lifelong peace/justice activist Barry Ponneck. He will donate proceeds to Music & Memory, the nonprofit Dan Cohen created. It aspires to get every resident of every nursing home in America an iPod or other MP3 player customized with the music that is important to each person.

Tickets will go on sale soon at Peoples Music in Sebastopol and The Last Record Store in Santa Rosa.

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BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS slip too far into the past, a mention is due of what a west-of-Petaluma family did upon spotting a CHP officer sitting for hours in a patrol car in a drenching, end-of-year storm.

Kim Lemons had been dispatched to Bodega Avenue at King Road, where a roadside tree fell and took power lines down with it. She wound up sitting there, warding drivers from the danger, for six hours.

From their home, a couple with two children spotted Lemons in her idled cruiser. They ventured out through the bluster to offer her some hot tea, which she gratefully accepted.

And at dinner time, they bundled up and presented the officer a plate of spaghetti.

Just being human.

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‘SELMA’ WAS PLAYING at the Rialto Cinemas on Saturday. Just before the 11:30 a.m. screening, the lights came up.

Owner Ky Boyd had readily granted a request by a few locals to speak briefly about the legacy of Platt Williams, who introduced the civil rights movement to Sonoma County in 1962 by leading a sit-in at Santa Rosa’s Silver Dollar saloon, then off-limits to blacks. He died New Year’s Eve at age 85.

Two veterans of the movement, Carole Ellis and Willie Garrett, joined Williams’ son, Dennis, in remembering the NAACP pioneer. They invited everyone to the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration coming Jan. 18 to Santa Rosa High.

Then it was showtime.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD