Music Program

We started a grant-funded music program in January 2006 coordinated by Jayne Demakos, a professional pianist and harpist. Working with local musicians who donate their talents, Jayne seeks to develop ways in which music can address the many needs of hospice patients.

Our CD

Beauty Crowds Me: An Homage to Beauty

This CD features 12 pieces, both originals and covers, by spectacular artists:

• Samite
• Schola Cantorum at Hospicare (Choir)
• Ithaca College Women’s Chorale directed by Janet Galván
• Ithaca College Music Faculty - Nicholas Walker on double bass and viola da gamba, Elizabeth Simkin on cello, and Wendy Mehne on flute
• Jayne Demakos and Evangeline Ray on harp.

Beauty Crowds Me: an Homage to Beauty - a title inspired by an Emily Dickinson -is not just soothing background music, although it does include lullabies. The music is designed to help give shape and meaning to human experience, given that when words are inadequate, music can provide the language of the soul.

This CD, distributed for free to hospice patients and for sale to others for $18, is a collaboration between Hospicare, the Ithaca College School of Music, Alex Perialas and Pyramid Sound Studios and the Gerontology Institute; part of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies, and the Linden Center for Creativity and Aging. All proceeds benefit Hospicare.

Hear excerpts from the CD.

Buy local! The CD is available at the Hospicare offices and these local businesses, most of which are forwarding all proceeds to Hospicare:

15 Steps, Center Ithaca, The Commons, Ithaca
Belle Melange, 210 West State St., Ithaca
Borders, the Shops at Ithaca Mall
Buffalo Street Books, Dewitt Mall, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Fibers, Center Ithaca, The Commons, Ithaca
Greenstar, 701 W. Buffalo St., Ithaca
Handwork, 102 W. State St., Ithaca
Moosewood, Dewitt Mall, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Padma, 114 W. Buffalo St., Ithaca
Rasa Spa, 310 Taughannock Blvd., Ithaca

Also available online through CD Baby.

Music and hospice

We are pleased to have a talented and diverse roster of volunteer musicians who can offer personalized musical support from jazz and classical to blue grass and funk, if that’s what seems appropriate and helpful. Social workers and primary nurses make referrals for patients and their families.

Music can ease physical symptoms, such as restlessness, agitation, sleeplessness and some physical discomfort. It can be deeply effective combined with massage, physical therapy, and range of motion exercises. It can also:

• provide comfort 
• help ease difficult emotions  
• act as a calming presence during stressful medical procedures
• offer emotional sustenance for patients and family members
  
• provide enjoyment and pleasure 

Music and events

Volunteer musicans play for monthly staff memorial services, Hospicare’s annual Memorial Service,  some bereavement support groups, and other special programs.

Women Singin' takes place monthly at 5:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month at the Nina K. Miller Hospicare Center. This is a singing circle (a capella songs from different traditions, harmonizing, rounds, etc.) for all women who like to sing.

Want to know more about any part of our music program? Contact Jayne at jdemakos@hospicare.org

During the four months Rich was at Hospicare, words were failing.  What he sometimes wanted to say he couldn't, and what he said he didn't want to.  But then came Pamela with her voice and dulcimer, and Jayne with her harp, and sometimes Joe sat at the piano, and then Rich knew he wasn't alone in the world that he was leaving and maybe -- just maybe -- where he was going he would be met by the same beauty that was feeding his soul." - Candace Galik

I tend to be a rationalist and a planner, a list-maker. The gift of music encourages me to be more than that - to be open to the spirit within, to wait in silence and peace, to live in acceptance of the new reality without My Beloved, and to have faith that the future will be bright and beautiful, filled with new life and new love." - E. Kimball Milling