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One new
nonprofit group uses the power of music to bring comfort
to people with a life-threatening illness.
News 8
Austin’s Paul Brown spoke with Christine Albert of
Swan
Songs.
Q:
Talk about Swan Song, how you were inspired to do this
and who you serve?
A: Well,
I am a musician for many years in Austin and I’ve been
asked several times over the years to go perform for
people who were struggling with a life-threatening
illness and could no longer go out and hear the music
that they loved, so I went to them. So, when it gets to
a point with an illness that you can’t go out and hear
it, we try and bring the music to them, and I felt like
in Austin, being the live music capital of the world,
that it would be a valuable service to offer to the
community to act as a liaison between the essentially
hospice community or end of life care, and the music
community.
Q: You
brought some photographs. Let’s take a look at that.
I’ll let you briefly describe what’s going on here and,
first, obviously we see someone with a bagpipe here, but
this was a recent visit.
A: Yes,
it was, and patients can request, families can request
either a style of music or a specific performer. In this
case, this gentleman is a bagpipe player for many, many
years and loves bagpipes. It’s his passion. So, we found
Nick Classen to come and perform for him and play
bagpipes and they talked about bagpipes and all the
different instruments and songs and, just, you know,
bringing that light back into his eyes.
Q:
Great moment there and then a father and daughter.
A: Yes,
this is a gentleman from West Austin and Eliza Gilkyson
was his request for a performer that he loves and so
Eliza came and performed for him and his lovely daughter
and his friends. They gathered about 20 friends in the
living room to share the concert with and Eliza sang for
them and created a memory, obviously a joyful one. It
was very inspiring.
Q: It
tells you what this is all about and why you do this. As
far as, first of all, those photographs, beautiful, and
we want to mention the photographer.
A: Carol
Grigsby took those photos. And she’s a wonderful
photographer, as you can see.
Q:
Captured those moments beautifully. People can help you
in many ways, I’m sure. How can people help?
A: Well,
our main focus right now is spreading the word and
making sure that the community knows that Swan Songs
exists, that people can call and make a request for a
certain performer or style of music and we will try and
facilitate it. We have a website, swansongs.org, and a
phone line, 416-SWAN, and, obviously, financial
contributions are helpful. We’re offering to pay the
musicians. Some of them are in a position where they
prefer not to take it, but we feel better being able to
honor the musicians and their talent by offering a small
honorarium.
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