Twin brothers spend their birthday performing for the elderly
Twin brothers Miles and Quincy Eby had the misfortune of their 14th birthday falling during the coronavirus pandemic and with just about everything closed, and stay-at-home orders in place, there wasn’t much they could do to celebrate.
But instead of spending the day at home sulking, the teen musicians from Englewood, New Jersey decided to host mini-concerts for three nursing homes in their area where they spent the day playing classical music for the stuck-inside seniors.
“When you see everything else going on, it just wouldn’t feel right” to celebrate as normal, Miles, who plays piano, told The Post.
“Not many people think about the elderly, especially young people,” added Quincy, who plays the violin and the viola.
Quincy and Miles had been watching the news and knew how bad nursing homes have been hit by the crisis, so they got the idea to host the concerts during their birthday weekend.
They arranged with the homes to set up their instruments outside the buildings in a spot where the senior residents could watch through their window.
Quincy picked out the music, a series of classical tunes from Bach, Bartok and Mendelssohn, and the boys asked their mom to set it up with the nursing homes for the May 3 birthday concert.
“I felt really good after performing for people and just seeing the smiles of the people that were outside and hearing later that they were listening and it just made me feel great,” said Quincy.
“My only goal was to use music to try to make them feel certain emotions, to try to take their minds off of the coronavirus outbreak … make them feel happy,” added Miles.
“Stress isn’t a good thing, it only makes things worse and if you can take their minds off of it and mentally bring them somewhere happy, that’s about the proudest feeling you could ever get.”
The boys’ mother, Angelique Phillips, said it was extraordinary to see the seniors opening their windows and raising their blinds so they could watch the show.
“It was like the life came back [to them]. They’d been so enclosed and something as simple of an act as opening a window and pulling up your blinds and just reconnecting that made me really feel very, very choked up because I felt like they were coming back to life,” Phillips told The Post.
“As a parent, I think you have a lot of expectations of them and what they do but it’s a really, really great feeling when you have taught a child to be kind and caring for anyone and then you see that come to fruition and its manifesting,” the mom went on.
“It made me feel really, really proud that they found a gift that they have and they wanted to use it in that way on their birthday. Of all days, they weren’t thinking about themselves, they were thinking about others.”
Miles said it’s important to be there for the community when they need it the most.
“The whole experience is about giving back. That’s pretty much all it is. It’s not about performing for people because you have to or because you want to, it’s just giving back to the community that you’re in,” the teen said.
“Hopefully we brightened their day,” added Quincy.
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