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Susan Robinson flipped through printed pages of lyrics as she sat alongside her fellow singers. Microphone stands were lined up nearby.
The lunch-hour performance was set to begin just after noon. But Robinson had arrived at 11 a.m. Thursday. She wanted enough to time to warm up and relax, she said.
Five years earlier, Robinson, a wife, mother, and retired speech and language pathologist at D.C. Public Schools, experienced a stroke while she was asleep. She now has weaker mobility on her left side.
“The first thing I said is, ‘I’m going to beat this,’” recalled Robinson, 63, saying that her faith in God motivated her. “And I’m going to get back up and get out into the world.”
Now, she’s part of a choir of other stroke and brain injury survivors who have found community through the neurologic music wellness program at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in the District.
By 12:15 p.m., the tables shaping the hospital’s cafeteria swelled with workers and patients eager for the show.
“All right,” Dana Griff, who leads the program, said to the crowd with a smile. “Y’all ready?”
Griff played the piano as the choir began with “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” referred to as the Black national anthem.
The nine-member, coed ensemble sat in a row of chairs and wheelchairs in the atrium adjacent to the cafeteria. Individually, their voices were at a lower intensity, yet together, they traveled through the microphones and filled the space.
Griff, 31, a board-certified music therapist, came up with the idea for a choir to provide continued care for people who have completed inpatient rehabilitation or who have otherwise passed through the hospital. The choir officially launched last July, and Thursday marked its third performance.
Since it began, participants have seen some encouraging changes, they said. Singing is improving 41-year-old Brandie Stinson-Brown’s memory, restoring 54-year-old Tiffany King’s confidence and giving Harriet White, 68, who sang in several groups before her stroke, the ability to harmonize again.
“Coming together with this group gives us all the opportunity to try and regain some of what we may have lost,” King said.
The choir is part of a wellness program at the hospital that uses music to stimulate neurologic change in the brain and help patients with speech, movement, coordination and mood, Griff said. Philanthropy keeps the program going. Donors, some of whom are referred to as “grateful patients,” include former patients of MedStar who want to give back.
Most choir members met through the hospital’s expansive adaptive programming, including sports and fitness, and are considered outpatient.
Robinson began her physical therapy with circuit training. She remembers singing along to tunes with others at the hospital. Griff, who met Robinson and participants in various programs, proposed a choir. They jumped on the idea.
Griff remembers seeing a choir perform adorned in red robes when she was a child, sparking her interest in musical assembly. While the hospital’s choir doesn’t have robes, its members do wear matching light-blue shirts emblazoned with their group name — Vocal Cortex, a group of people “coming together to form one,” Griff said.
“A cortex is a system designed to protect but also to grow into something more complex,” said Griff. “An avenue for building new pathways for music to travel.”
Members of Vocal Cortex say they’re family who love one another. They go to movies, spend time on park trails and eat dinner together.
And every Thursday afternoon, about a dozen assemble for choir practice.
“It’s nice to be able to share with all the people here, and although [we] might not have the best voice,” King said, “being able to come together and just sing from our hearts is a beautiful thing.”
At the recent lunchtime performance, songs ranged from gospel to groovy. The choir sang Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens and a mix of other tunes reflecting the members’ preferences, Griff said. After every song, the audience broke out in claps and cheers.
Ellsworth Slye, 69, performed a solo midway through — “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot/Swing Down Chariot” — his deep tone matching the sincerity of the lyrics.
“Sing it, Slye!” someone from the crowd shouted.
Deonte Gay, 36, listened from his table. An outpatient in therapy himself, he had watched the choir practice for weeks. Gay said that he joked with the group about singing louder, but he knows all too well what can happen to one’s voice after a life-altering brain injury. Gay survived a shooting nearly 17 years ago.
“It’s sorta kinda hard to project our voice sometimes,” Gay said. “Sometimes you gotta push yourself a little harder, and you gotta get your wind patterns up.”
The eight-song lineup proved to be no match for the well-rehearsed choir. Throughout the half-hour performance, a smile never left Robinson’s face.
“We’re able to bounce back and celebrate life and sing,” she said of performing.
Just before 1 p.m., it was time to close with their signature song: Bill Withers’s “Lean on Me.”
As the crowd clapped along, Stinson-Brown shook her tambourine.
“I just might have a problem that you’ll understand,” they sang. “We all need somebody to lean on.”
“Call me,” they repeated. “If you need a friend.”
The post The choir helping stroke and brain injury survivors restore what was lost appeared first on Washington Post.
