Choir Will Use Music To Ease Transition To Death
By CHRISTINA JEDRA
The Capital
PASADENA, Md. (AP) -- About 40 years ago, aspiring nurse Sharon Igoe Von Behren found herself in a nursing home with an elderly husband and wife.
"He was actively dying and she knew it," said Von Behren, 60, a Baltimore City resident. "He was still breathing but not responsive."
The man's wife had tears in her eyes and said she wished she could sing to him. Von Behren, a lifelong musician, asked what she'd like to hear.
"I sang `Let Me Call You Sweetheart' and his wife sat there and cried the whole time," she said.
This month, Von Behren is bringing bedside singing to the county with a new "threshold choir," a group of vocalists who use music to bring comfort to those at the threshold of life, and their loved ones.
The Anne Arundel County Threshold Choir and the Prince George's GIFTS Choir are two such groups formed through Hospice of the Chesapeake. Heidi Dressler, executive director of the California-based Threshold Choir organization, said the network started 15 years ago when the founder crooned to a friend dying of HIV/AIDS.
"People get agitated when transitioning," she said. "What we notice is that that people will be tossing and turning, they're not verbal, and you start singing and they calm down almost immediately ... We do know that music is the one thing that activates every part of your brain simultaneously. It's giving you an experience that nothing else could do."
Dressler said joining a threshold choir is a powerful service.
"Family and caregivers say for them it sounds like angels," she said. "It's helping someone leave this life."
Threshold choir members sing for variety of people, from long-term terminal patients who enjoy performances for years to those on their deathbed, Dressler said. They also sing to other groups, like infants in neonatal intensive care or those who are incarcerated.
"Those are also life thresholds," she said. "Sometimes it's about coming in, or the changes happening in your life."
Dressler said that while threshold choirs are nondenominational, singers have a "spiritual connection" to the patient, the caregivers and the family members present. These intense visits require training to know how to respond to cues.
"When we train them, we talk about how to physically position yourself, how you pay attention to the signals the patients are giving you," she said. "Some patients will say `I don't want to hear that song. Sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."` Some want to remember when they were younger and in a more positive place."
Most choirs know songs in many different languages to accommodate requests from different cultures and religions, Dressler said.
Von Behren said she began volunteering with Hospice of the Chesapeake in August and jumped at the opportunity to direct the local threshold choir.
She has directed the Arundel Singers since 1978 and has sung with the Maryland State Chorus, the Baltimore Symphony Chorus and the Phoenix Choir of Baltimore.
She said that during an Arundel Singers performance at a nursing home years ago, a resident quietly passed away during the concert.
"The daughter told me her mom passed away doing what she loved most, which was listening to music," she said. "That really set me into motion with threshold choirs."
Von Behren said the county threshold choir will learn the national organization's repertoire but will also tailor performances to their audience, which, in Maryland, will likely include veterans.
"I would guarantee we'll be asked to sing the Army hymn, the Navy hymn, the Marine hymn," she said.
The county threshold choir is open to men and women of any voice part and ability, Von Behren said. All that is required is availability to attend rehearsal and a desire to sing.
"I've been directing community chorus for 27 years, and I've worked with all kinds of voices, all kinds of ranges and all kinds of circumstances," she said. "I'm convinced there's no voice that can't sing."
(Copyright 2016 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)