Michael and Sharon

Michael Hurwicz and Sharon Abreu have performed as "The Irthlingz Duo" since they met at the People's Voice coffeehouse in Greenwich Village in 1998. Soon, the activist-singing-songwriting-goofing-around duo was appearing with legendary folk singer Pete Seeger in concerts to benefit the Ships to Save the Waters conference, the Delaware Bay Schooner Project and the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater’s New Boat Fund.

They also created "Turn the World Upside Down," a fun, educational 45-minute interactive musical show about water conservation, keeping the water clean, and recycling, for grades 1-5. Satisfying New York State academic standards for science – as well as kids' standards for being silly – they performed in a number of public schools and at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn, NY, with Emmy-winner Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” under the auspices of the Brooklyn Arts Council.

From these seeds grew years of singing, songwriting, celebration and advocacy, focusing on peace, the environment and sustainability. In 2001, a generous grant from the Celebration Foundation enabled them to form a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Irthlingz, (https://www.irthlingz.org). This funding allowed them, among other adventures, to travel to the Centro Ecologico Akumal (CEA), in Akumal, Mexico; to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa; and to Cambridge University in England. They learned as they went how to educate, entertain and inspire through music.