While people waited in line for coffee at the Pittsford Wegmans one day in 2014, something wonderful happened.
Marge Ostroushko was visiting Rochester to care for her mother, and she recalls, “at some point, we did a little outing to Wegmans, and we were standing in the coffee line, and she started singing.”
Her mother, who had Alzheimer’s sang, “Bicycle Built for Two,” and to Ostroushko’s surprise “the whole coffee line joined in.”
"It was at that point,” she says, “I realized where she didn't have words all the time, but the lyrics for a familiar song were right there for her, and it was joyful.”
When Ostroushko returned to her home in Minneapolis, she contacted a friend with the Alzheimer’s Society. The two combined forces, and “looked at the research that was coming out at that point about music and the brain,” and she says “One thing led to another. We got a small group of people together, and it just grew from there.”
They called it Giving Voice, and it has since grown into a national network of more than 80 choruses for people with dementia and their caregivers across the country.
Since 2024, this initiative has included a group in Rochester called ENCORE (which stands for “Every New Connection Offers Resonating Experiences) founded by musicology professor and singer Michael Alan Anderson.
Each week, they meet for one hour of singing, followed by a half hour of structured social time with refreshments. There’s also storytelling, and some light physical movements. Each pair - the person living with dementia and their caregiver – have a volunteer that works with them.
Music therapist Erica Porter-Smith conducts the chorus. Her work as a licensed music therapist is benefits for the brain when people sing, “neural connections that you can physically see that occurs when someone is singing a song that's familiar.”
But that’s not all, she says, “Outside of that, when you are creating music with other people, it's the social piece that builds upon that neural connection that's happening when you're engaging in music making and singing.”
“It's really about the community building and the relationships that folks can make with one another.” That community element is a theme that comes up again and again when discussing this experience.
Joanne Newcomb-Losh is living with dementia; she and her husband Ed Deller have been part of ENCORE for about two years. She describes the experience as, “an easy comfortable thing to do.”
Ed says, “It is just so warm, and you know the people are very caring. You know, it's a room full of people who are in a situation like ours, and they are they're just kind and and fun, and so I go into it now thinking it's just like a big musical hug.”
In addition to singing familiar popular songs, one of the chorus's most treasured piece is a song written for them, by composer and Eastman professor Philip Silvey, "Here We Are." Silvey drew on his own experience with father's journey with Alzheimer's to write this music for ENCORE, and Deller says they can feel the connect, "it comes from his heart, and it just fills other hearts."
These connections are what Marge Ostroushko hoped to build when starting Giving Voice all those years ago. She’s been singing back in Minneapolis in a Giving Voice chorus as a caregiver for a friend, and recently visited with Rochester’s ENCORE chorus.
In addition to community, Ostroushko says, that she has had many people say to her that, "Singing in this chorus gives me purpose." And she says, "We all need purpose, and the fact that it is a weekly gathering with people that they know, that they all get a chance to to be with again and and to sing again, is something that I feel has great resonance with a lot of people. The other part is that you don’t have to be a professional singer. You don’t have to try out – you just have to try."
New singers are welcome for the fall. The ENCORE Chorus is open to individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. No formal diagnosis or proof is required. People of all ages are welcome, and no musical background or ability to read music is necessary.
ENCORE meets on Mondays, starting September 14th with options for 10:30am or 1pm sessions, at First Unitarian Church of Rochester on Winton Road. You can register through the Eastman Community Music School website.
