UC Berkeley student brings musicians together for Ukraine benefit concert

Lucas Spangher, a Ph.D. candidate in UC Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, is organizing a benefit concert for Ukraine, with help from a team, that will take place at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre on Sunday, March 13. (UC Berkeley graphic by Neil Freese) On the evening of Feb. Lucas Spangher was working the cook shift at the Berkeley Student Cooperative, where he lives with more than 50 other UC Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students. He heard a buzz around the house, but was busy preparing and serving dinner, and didn't think much of it. "I didn't know what was going on until a friend of mine handed me the Ukrainian National Anthem and was like, 'Let's play this on piano.' I was like, 'Why?' And he told me Russia had invaded Ukraine. From that moment on, we began thinking of how we could honor Ukraine, each in our own ways." At Berkeley, Spangher is a fifth-year Ph.D.