Do you need to entertain your residents with music that brings back memories and a performer who makes them smile? Bring Anna’s harp music in their lives.
- Mini-concerts for residents
- Bedside music with Anna’s small therapy harp
- Ambiance music for Holiday events
- Family nights and advertising events
Entertain Your Residents With a Harp Concert
I play “mini-concerts” for residents, explaining about the harp, the music, tell funny stories, and playing my wide repertoire of songs residents recognize and enjoy. I create a new program every month and several facilities hire me every month to being new music on a familiar soothing instrument. Contact me to bring Harp music’s elegance and youthful energy into your facility.
“Anna has an amazing talent, not only for playing the harp, but for engaging our senior listeners with humor and interesting anecdotes. She is, by far, one of their favorite performers!”
—Caryn Adler, Activities Director at Brentwood in Niles
Therapy Music with the Walkabout Harp
Do your residents not come out to activities? Bring live harp music to their bedsides. With my smallest harp, Claire, I can walk right to residents who are in hospice, bedfast or unable to participate in group events. I also bring Claire to play for the patients in Alzheimers and low cognitive units. Nurses comment on the calming effect and joy it brings to the patients . I am amazed when patients who cannot tell me their names will sing along to the hymns I play for them.
Holidays and Special Events
Need instant elegance? Impress your residents and guests with seasonal live background music for those special events. Whether your planning a family night, an advertising open house or a a holiday dinner, soothing harp music sets perspective residents at ease as you present your facility.
Quotes and Referrals:
“The very souls of our precious residents are touched and soothed as Anna strolls through our building playing her harp. It seems as if an angel is giving us a visit.” —Nancy Bontrager, Activity Director at Miller Merry Manor Wakarusa
“I love it! I love it! I love it!” —Aggie, resident at Miller’s Mary Manor in Wakarusa.
Anna Wins Wickersham Award for Playing Harp in Therapeutic Settings
April 2011 I was awarded the Wickersham Grant which is provided for harpists showing “musical potential with preference given to those using the harp in a therapeutic setting. ” Below is an excerpt from my application telling of some of experiences I have had sharing music with seniors and their response.
“I feel like I don’t have Parkinson’s,” said a wheelchair bound gentleman as I finished playing an old hymn he recognized. For the five years I have been playing in senior facilities, I have had amazing opportunities. Regularly I see how the tiniest tune can restore life and delight to the elderly, the disabled and the terminally ill.
My first events in senior facilities were strictly background music, but I soon began doing afternoon programs for residents where I interspersed explanations about the harp with well-known hymns and “golden oldies.” To play for the many residents who are unable to leave their rooms for activities, I take my small HarpiscleTM room to room, person to person. Improvising or playing from memory, I have the opportunity to interact face to face and personalize the mood and the music to each resident. They respond. Alzheimer’s patients who cannot tell me their name will sing along to Amazing Grace.
Each week, I bring my harp to the bedside of Lucille, a normally unresponsive stroke patient. The first time I played a hymn she recognized, Lucille tried to sit up. Her blue eyes opened into mine and she began mouthing in time to the music. Her family was as amazed as I was. Since that first day, she has grown to recognize when I come and looks expectantly in my direction. Her therapist and family often tell me that Lucille was not awake that morning until she heard my music. I prepare to see her, picking out songs I hope she will recognize.
Playing for dementia patients in lock-down units is often a joy and always an experience. I work to find music they recognize. When I succeed, I am accompanied by a chorus of warbling voices. In many places the nurses and staff are as pleased as the residents. My goal when playing for seniors is to find songs they recognize and enjoy, supplying melodies and words worth meditating on.
I hope to continue to play at hospitals, for senior facilities and in Alzheimer’s units many more people will be as encouraged as the gentleman who felt like he no longer had Parkinson’s.”
“Young men and maidens, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the LORD.”
Psalm 148:12