Threshold Choir sings for dying patients
When Johanna Asher moved to Philipstown from Georgia in 2020, she had to leave behind the Atlanta Threshold Choir, which sings to people in hospice or palliative care, so she formed a Hudson Highlands chapter.
It came together organically, she says, as she made friends with other singers. A year ago, she and Donna Reilly, Kate Conway, Melissa Angier and Michele Wolfson began learning the Threshold Choir’s songs. They visited their first patient earlier this year.
The national Threshold Choir was founded in 2000 in northern California by Kate Munger. It has since expanded to include nearly 200 chapters, spanning Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., the Netherlands, Mexico and Guatemala.
“When I heard about this, I just thought this is such a special thing,” says Patti Cooper of the choir, which now has 10 members. “I want to be sung to at any crisis time in my life.” Adds Conway: “This fills up that need to sing, and it’s moving for the patients.”
The Hudson Highlands Threshold Choir practices every other Monday at Taconic Rehabilitation and Nursing in Fishkill. It sings to patients there and at Taconic Rehabilitation in Beacon and the Sapphire nursing home in Wappingers Falls.
The national organization recommends that chapters have 15 songs they know by heart and offers about 300 selections on its website. Each chapter has five to six songs they sing often, Asher says. There is conversation and laughter between songs, although some patients may be sedated.
Because only three or four choir members visit at one time, each must be able to sing in at least two pitches and handle multiple parts of each song. The practices can be intense. “It’s almost like a sport for me,” says Conway. “When I leave, I feel like I got this singing workout.”
The choir usually starts with “Rest Easy,” by Marilyn Power Scott, because “everyone needs to rest easy,” Asher says. “Rest easy. Let every trouble drift away. Easy… rest easy…”
For more information, see thresholdchoir.org/hudsonhighlands.
To request a Threshold Choir visit, see thresholdchoir.org/request-singers.
