Top Selling Female Instrumentalist

Keiko Matsui Wins NMDP Grant Hartley Diversity Award

As an instrumental jazz artist, Keiko Matsui has captivated live audiences and music buyers for more than 10 years. This year, Matsui is using her critical stature as a top-selling instrumentalist and her international fan base to help spread the word about the need for marrow and blood stem cell donors.

At its annual Council Meeting in November, the National Marrow Donor Program^® (NMDP) honored Matsui with the 2001 Grant Hartley Diversity Award for her commitment to recruiting life-saving marrow donors, especially from minority communities. The Grant Hartley Award is presented for outstanding leadership in building awareness of the need to diversify the Registry and for recruitment efforts with diverse populations that will help ensure that all patients in need will have comparable access to transplantation. Nominations for this award were received for individuals and organizations across the country.

In addition to promoting marrow and blood stem cell donation as part of her current Deep Blue concert tour, Matsui and her recording label, Narada Jazz, produced a special four-song extended play enhanced CD called Gift of Life. Good Neighbor Pharmacy has underwritten the CD and all proceeds will benefit the National Marrow Donor Program and its partner, The Marrow Foundation.

The Gift of Life CD includes:

• 4 Keiko Matsui songs,
• an educational video for donors,
• sponsor information, and
• links to sponsor Web sites.

"It is my wish that, by raising awareness for the worldwide need for marrow and blood stem cell transplants, more people will register to become donors. We may all be a missing piece to the puzzle," Matsui said. "The more of us who register as donors, the greater the chance of finding a match for someone greatly in need. Donors can give the gift of life. It is my hope through our availability and donations, we can truly make a difference around the world," she said. Matsui was recognized as Billboard's #1 Contemporary Female Jazz Artist, third overall behind Kenny G and Boney James, and "Best Female Artist" at the first and second annual National Smooth Jazz Awards held in the winters of 2000 and 2001.

The award presented in November was part of the NMDP's annual Council Meeting in Minneapolis. Approximately 850 people from the NMDP's Network in the United States and abroad attend this three-day gathering. Individuals who play roles in matching volunteer marrow and blood stem cell donors with unrelated transplant recipients are brought together to participate in workshops and seminars focusing on marrow and blood stem cell transplantation issues including umbilical cord blood banking and new methods of tissue matching.

Created in 1986, the Minneapolis-based NMDP facilitates unrelated marrow and blood stem cell transplants for the treatment of leukemia and more than 70 other diseases through an extensive network of national and international partners. By recruiting committed donors, maintaining the largest and most diverse Registry of potential volunteer donors in the world and offering patient services, at least 140 patients receive stem cell transplants through the NMDP each month. The NMDP's Registry contains more than 4.5 million volunteers and is the only one that searches all three sources of blood stem cells available: marrow, peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. As of Sept. 30, 2001, the NMDP has facilitated more than 13,000 transplants throughout the world.

For more information about the NMDP, how to become a donor or marrow and blood stem cell transplantation, call 1-800-MARROW-2.