The Singing Network: International Symposium on Singing and Song

Thursday, October 2015
Session 1, Health and Wellness
Jane Gosine, Sophia Werden Abrams, Carol Beynon

This session talked about using choral singing as a means of music therapy. Dr. Gosine talked about a therapeutic choir that runs out of a children's hospice in the UK. The choir consists of children with disabilities and their families. Members of the choir reported that singing in the group allowed them to have fun in a social environment with families who understand their special circumstances and provide support for them. Having had a small amount of experience interacting with families of children with disabilities, I feel like I have a very small understanding of what a group like this can mean. This summer, I worked at a summer camp where young children with disabilities were given the opportunity to come to overnight camp with their parents. The parents got to interact one another in a safe environment, and I saw first hand the kind of impact that can have on families. I can easily see how singing in a choir would provide the same kind of relief and support.
Sophia talked about the benefits of singing in a senior church choir, and provided examples from choirs in the St. John's area. Carol Beynon discussed the intergenerational choral curriculum for seniors with Alzheimer's disease at Western University. They teamed up with a high school, and each week students would come in and sing in a choir with the Alzheimer's patients. Many benefits were observed. I'm excited to hear that a project like this might happen in St. John's!

Friday, October 2nd 2015

Session 2, Words and Gestures
Joel Katz, Melissa C. Brunkan

Joel Katz talked about music and memory. I found this really interesting as a pianist, because memory is something we deal with a lot. He talked about how a musician's memory differs from someone who is not a musician, and then how a singer's memory is different from other musicians. Melissa Brunkan talked about how gesture affects the voice. She studied the affects of two different gestures on the students in her voice studio (a low, circular arm motion and a finger point). What I found most interesting was that she studied the affect that these gestures had on the students' tuning. The finger point made students go drastically sharp, which was really interesting to me.