Aged Care Insite Issue 114 | Oct-Nov 2019 | Page 26

practical living With One Voice founder Tania de Jong with choir members. Photo: Graham Denholm With one voice The community choir giving a voice to those in aged care. By Conor Burke I like to do it in the shower. Or while I’m driving the car. Even around the house while I’m doing chores or standing on a table in the pub. These are a few places I like to sing. Friends and family have always had a chuckle at my noisy-singing ways. I do it without noticing most times, but belting out a tune or softly singing makes me feel good. It feels like a stress release. And it turns out science backs this up. Studies show that oxytocin, the pleasure and love chemical in the brain, is greatly increased after singing. In fact, singing has been shown to increase blood flow, improve neural pathways, release endorphins and can increase learning and language skills. Creativity Australia want to use singing, and all of these benefits, to build a “happier, healthier, more inclusive nation” through its With One Voice program. This idea consists of what is a simple and somewhat lost concept: With One Voice is a choir program. Founded in 2008 by award-winning social entrepreneur and soprano Tania de Jong, more than 6000 people have taken part in the program over the last decade. Through the years, participants in the professionally conducted choirs have reported that they experience less stress and feel less depressed, and over 80 per cent say they have formed friendships with other choir members. With One Voice has also taken these ideas to the aged care space. Its Altona Meadows choir in Melbourne has been involving aged care residents and bringing the community 24 agedcareinsite.com.au together for the past six years. Ray McAlary and Denise Bedford can attest to the power of a community choir. The couple met when Ray moved to Melbourne from Brisbane after the death of his wife. Ray joined the local Laverty choir after seeing an ad in the paper. “I saw this advertisement in the paper one day with these three lovely ladies who happened to include Denise. And I thought, I’ll give this a try – and I never looked back. Denise and I got on particularly well, but it took me four months to ask her out,” he tells me. “He’s a bit slow, but you know,” Denise says with the perfect timing of a singer. Almost six years later they are now married and dedicated members of the Altona Meadows choir. “It’s not just about getting something [out of the choir],” Denise says. “It’s being able to give. I am 74 now and Ray’s 75. And it is just beautiful. We are at an age where we can appreciate things in life other than ourselves. “I can’t speak for the others, but I just love to help there. I love the people there.” “There are 21 community members in the choir,” Ray says. “There were 22, but one of them, Jack, has moved into the nursing home.” “He’s about 86,” Denise adds. “And there are about 10 of us who meet up at the coffee shop. It’s the local Melbourne Central Shopping Centre after choir on Wednesdays. So, it sort of continues on. And we’re able to laugh, have a good chat. It’s really beautiful.” The Altona Meadows choir is a great reflection of the community, the pair say. The youngest members are in their 20s and the oldest – residents of Benetas – are in their 90s. “We do have a couple of twin girls who have joined,” Denise says. “They’re in their early 20s. We have a beautiful woman called Annie. She’s blind. And one of the members who joined before her, Lynn, has taken her under her wing now. “Annie’s about 60. She’s got the most magnificent voice. And Lynn sort of leads her around everywhere. And it has just been a wonderful thing,” Denise beams. “You know, people say they’ve got nothing to do. Well, go join a choir or go volunteer at a nursing home or somewhere and you’ll see life in a different way.” And volunteer is what these choir members do at Benetas. Singing side by side, forming bonds through song, the members take on other roles in the residents’ lives. Denise tells me about an Italian member of the choir who takes the Italian newspapers to the home in his own time and reads to Italian residents he’s befriended. “Helping, just talking to people, holding their hands, telling them they are beautiful – just the interaction with them – it is just beautiful. Plus, we have a wonderful conductor, Kym. He’s lovely,” Denise says. Kym is Kym Dillon, a professional conductor and musician in his own right. A pianist first and foremost, Kym studied to be a composer at the Victorian College of the Arts (now an Open University) and got the composing gig with Creativity Australia – his first – aged 21. “I just learned on the job,” he says, “gaining confidence over the years. I can do it quite naturally now. It’s one of those sink or swim type things, and the Altona choir was added to my roster, probably three years after that.” The Altona choir is about breaking down barriers between the community and those in aged care, Kym says. “What makes the magic of this choir work is that the singing is the heart of it, but then out of that flows these relationships we forge with the residents. And that spills over into the afternoon tea we have straight after choir, where all the visitors will sit down and have a cup of tea with the residents,” he says. “It really is about building this community and building those relationships, but starting up with the idea of community singing. It all flows from that because when you sing music with people it tends to link people together, even people from very different stages in life, or walks of life. It’s quite remarkable what happens there.” Kym tells me how much he enjoys the back and forth with residents and, surprisingly, how much he gets from these amateurs compared with some of the professionals he works with. “With some professional choirs, you can spend a long time getting all the harmonies right and all the finer details, and then it’s