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 time, Jayne coordinates using their talents at Hospicare functions. Jayne herself plays the harp at patients' bedsides and is in the process of completing her degree in music therapy.
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.
Buy local! The CD is available at the Hospicare offices and at Buffalo Street Books Cooperative, Dewitt Mall, 215 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca
Also available online through CD Baby.
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
