Stay tuned for In Our Range on the way next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
Our guest this morning is Vince Aschurin with Harmony on Silver.
Harmony on Silver is an intergenerational memory choir based in the Hurley and Ironwood area designed for individuals living with memory changes such as dementia or Alzheimer's.
They're care partners, friends, and community members.
Harmony on Silver is dedicated to enriching lives through intergenerational choral music and their mission to create opportunities for people to connect and thrive through singing together.
This fall marks the first season for Harmony on Silver.
Rehearsals are held on Tuesdays from 1.30 to 2.30 p.m.
at the Gathering Place in Hurley from September 22 to November 17.
Everyone from the Hurley-Ironwood area is encouraged to participate.
Their first performance will be at Zion Lutheran Church on November 21 at 1 p.m.
Vince Shorin is a local performing and teaching musician.
He directs community choirs, teaches voice lessons, and performs under the name Spoons for the People.
He's enthusiastic about community music and has performed at Theater North and other local venues.
He completed his undergraduate degree in vocal performance and holds a master's in music education.
Good morning, Vince, and welcome to In Our Range.
Hi, Mike.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, it's good to have you.
We were advertising when you were holding, like, auditions or your initial rehearsals here recently, and I thought, what a wonderful group.
I need to get them on here.
and talk with them because there should be more singing and this sounds like a tremendous and wonderful idea to come around.
So Harmony on Silver it's entering its inaugural season and you already host and lead like several choirs from Bayfield Presbyterian Church all the way across the range in the South Shore over to here to the Community Pride Choir Woodland Screechers.
How did Harmony on Silver come about and how did you get involved?
Really the the key to us getting started has been a non-profit organization located in Minneapolis called Giving Voice Initiative and their whole mission is to help organize and give resources to and start new memory choirs.
And really a memory choir is just kind of a community choir open to everybody but with a specific
goal to be inclusive and accessible for people with memory loss.
So giving voice actually helped me and a group of other people start a memory choir in Ashland one year ago called Melody Lane and we had a couple concerts.
It was a really big success and people really seemed to get a lot out of it both musically and also just in terms of
building a sense of community, getting together every week, singing great songs that they love.
So I asked Giving Voice, hey, could I start one in Hurley as well?
I think people would be really receptive to it and enjoy it here.
So that's kind of the story of how we got started.
Songs and music are just such a wonderful way to create community and foster community.
so I can see why you have a stable of choirs building because you get to be a part of all these incredible communities and I imagine that each of them have their own kind of personalities.
Yeah, a couple of the main things from Melody Lane that I definitely want to be a part of Harmony on Silver here in Hurley is singing songs that people are enthusiastic about that people maybe in an older generation might
have sung or listened to when they were young.
So this season we're singing songs like The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell, Little Boxes, So Far Away by Carol King, Love Me Tender, Love Me True.
Classic.
Classic, yeah.
Songs that people in that generation know and love.
And you know, it's definitely true that everybody can enjoy music.
One cool thing about a memory choir is that people with memory loss and people without memory loss are singing together, all part of the same goal, the same concert that we're working to prepare.
And it is really, really amazing to have those specific instances and people who are maybe at a point in a memory loss condition where they don't talk very much and they're not
really able to have a conversation as much as they used to but you get them in a choir and surrounded by people singing these songs that they know and love and you see people singing who you didn't expect that from and it's really amazing for everybody involved especially the caregivers and family members who sometimes come and sing with them.
Yeah, the person finds this Avenue to feel just drawn out of them by the music where they just feel more like themselves and then their caregivers and their families get to see them emerge and see that smile on their face again and be a part of this Wonderful community and people and getting to experience that as a gift, you know, whether you're receiving the support or giving the support, right?
Absolutely.
It's really incredible
Harmony on Silver, rehearsals have begun.
And how has the response been so far?
It's been great.
We have received a lot of enthusiastic support and people, you know, offering to volunteer.
Hey, can we bring snacks to rehearsals?
Hey, can we come sing with you guys?
We've had some people who have said, oh, I have a neighbor who would really benefit from this.
So I'm going to just give them a ride every week and, you know, sit with them and rehearsal.
So it's been a positive response from the community in general.
We had about 10 people show up at our first rehearsal, which we were thrilled with
and we're hoping
to add some more singers as well.
Excellent.
Yeah, and everyone is welcome, right?
Not just if your life is affected by memory changes or if you know someone, but or even if you can really sing all that great.
This is a chance to practice and learn.
100%.
Another thing that makes our choir kind of unique is that
We find it fun to try our best to work on songs and present them as a service to the community, right?
As something that people are going to enjoy listening to.
And so we find it fun to try to do our best to work on the rhythms in rehearsal sometimes, or I'll give vocal tips.
But really, that's not the point.
The point is to be together, to enjoy singing together, and not to like stress out about achieving perfection or technical
proficiency.
Yeah, I'm a musician myself and I've always been amazed when you get past yourself that often...
It's vibes over technicality.
The technique is incredible.
Everyone respects a technically proficient musician and it's wonderful, but sometimes there's something especially about singing.
There's something about the human voice that just draws people together and sort of takes down kind of our masks and our guards and opens us up.
and hearts sort of join together when voices join together.
It's why we sing in church.
It's why we sing before special events and in schools and at all these kinds of gatherings you'll always find songs.
I'm really glad.
I wish I could participate.
My work schedule doesn't allow me currently, but...
Yeah, we are we do aspire to be we want to be an intergenerational choir like our site says, you know We rehearse at 1 30 p.m.
Which is kind of the most dementia friendly time of day, okay?
But we do we you know, especially if you're a young person who's free at 1 30 p.m.
On Tuesdays, we'd love to have you as well
You hear that you young folks out there listening to classic country in the mornings They could really you really use you
Over at the gathering place in a hurly.
Oh, they're out there.
They're out there
I mean, but but yeah what you were saying about like people, you know the human voice having a special kind of power Is absolutely true and the great thing is that you get so many benefits for your body and for your mind by singing with other people and those benefits are
are not just for people who are good at singing.
They're for everybody, you know?
So there's no audition to join this choir.
If you've never sung in a choir before, you've never sung at all, you're still more than welcome to join us.
We try to be as inclusive as possible.
Giving Voices is out of Minneapolis.
Giving Voice?
It's the Giving Voice initiative.
So Giving Voice out of Minneapolis found you and reached across the state line into Wisconsin to spread their empire of joy.
No, it really though, because they actually, they got a big grant and they're actually in the process of starting like 15 to 20 new memory choirs all across rural areas in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
So they really are doing what you just said.
Yeah, I was being a little facetious, but I also kind of meant it because I'm excited about it.
you know music is a big part of my life that's how i'm here at the radio station like i am and so it would be wonderful to see people reach out they are still accepting new members it's a brief period of time for that window to be open though because your performance is coming up right here in about you know five weeks almost on november 21st so your perform the performance will be on is coming up
and so there's a small window of time to be able to get in and make sure that everyone has their parts rehearsed and the choir is gelling and having a great time before the performance on the 21st at 1pm at Zion Lutheran Church giving voice emerged they emerged out of Minneapolis and like we talked about they had got this huge grant to open up choirs across rural areas in these communities throughout Wisconsin and even touching the upper peninsula of Michigan here
Can you speak to the importance of music and therapy for people who are experiencing memory changes?
Yeah, you know, the science of it isn't something that I know too much about, but I do know that music is stored in a very specific part of the brain, and it's a part of the brain that oftentimes isn't as affected by memory loss conditions.
So even if somebody might not be able to remember
Certain people or certain words, oftentimes they can still remember melodies and tunes, especially if there is an emotion associated with it, right?
They listen to that song while they went out to football games with all their friends or things like that.
So it's not just that the that the songs can draw out the melodies from people.
It's also that the songs can draw out memories from people
as well
that are associated with the songs.
Yeah, and then that memory could be attached to something else that might not have been as accessible before until that song came in.
It sort of is like a key that kind of unlocks the door for folks.
Absolutely.
And so it's amazing how all the research and Alzheimer's and memory conditions, memory change conditions that have happened and a simple tool has been there all along.
And I find that always kind of really inspiring how sometimes we face
Really difficult changes and conditions in our life and circumstances and sometimes the answer is as simple as a song or like a hug or a joke or a connection between people.
It seems to be the common solution for many of our issues.
So Giving Voice is doing wonderful work there and you've got your experience in Ashland with Melody Lane.
Harmony on Silver is here and so the rehearsals are going once a week and how are those structured?
from 130 to 230.
Yeah so a typical rehearsal is people show up and then we start with a few vocal warm-ups so we do a few stretches just to get our bodies warmed up activate our breathing our diaphragms and then we'll do you know a few vocal exercises maybe some size ah things like that just to warm up the voice gently and then we jump right into our songs we have an accompanist
And we sing mostly songs that are in one or two-part harmony, so nothing too complicated.
And another part of the dementia-friendly aspect of the choir is that all of our music is available in large print and also even typed out lyrics.
Anybody, you know memory condition or not if you are not able to read sheet music or don't want to read sheet music We have lyrics so you can just sing the melody along with us and then at the end of the Musical part of the rehearsal will have a little time usually for tea or snacks afterwards, too I
can imagine this just brings a lot of brightness and joy
into people must be a wonderful thing to be a part of and so thank you vince and britney and all the folks at harmony on silver for bringing this to our area do you have anything you'd like to add before we head on out of here today
um just that i am
You know, I'll just add that yes, it brings people a lot of joy.
My favorite thing in a choir concert is when the singers love singing and the audience can tell that.
And similarly, you know, I really love directing choirs, so I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do that here in Hurley.
And I hope that your listeners will consider singing with Harmony on Silver this autumn.
I think so.
We got a lot of big music fans here in the mornings, and I've been enjoying playing music for them.
I will say one more thing.
If you'd like to learn more about us or see some performance videos of Melody Lane, you can check out our choirs website through my personal website, spoonsforthepeople.com, and then you can click on choirs, and then you can click on Harmony on Silver to see all of our dates, all of our songs, things like that.
Well, thank you for joining us this morning, Vince.
I really appreciate you coming in and I'm looking forward to the concert on the 21st and seeing how all this develops and goes and wishing Harmony on Silver a lot of luck.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you.
My guest this morning was Vince Shuren, Artistic Director with Harmony on Silver Memory Choir.
Harmony on Silver rehearsals are held at the Gathering Place every Tuesday from 1.30 to 2.30 pm with social time after rehearsal.
Anyone and everyone who likes to sing is welcome to join the choir and be a part of this uplifting experience.
Harmony on Silver is a proud member of the Giving Voice Network, a community of choirs around the world that are increasing well-being and redefining the narrative of dementia.
If you'd like to learn more about memory choirs and see examples of performances, you can visit Vince's website, spoonsforthepeople.com, slash choirs.
You can also email them at Harmony on Silver,
at gmail.com for more information.
Thank you for joining us this morning on In Our Range.
I'm your host Mike LeBeau and I hope you have a great weekend and we'll catch you back here next week.