Joyful Voices choir members practice in November at Salisbury Presbyterian Church in Midlothian. (Photo by Chris Smith)
On Thursday mornings, a symphony of melodic voices fills Salisbury Presbyterian Church in Midlothian — the sound of the Joyful Voices choir in practice.
Its 56 members perform a host of songs that are familiar fare for choral ensembles, but Joyful Voices is not your everyday choir. This group is composed of metro Richmond residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders.
Joanne Sherman, a retired music teacher, is the choir’s artistic director. Through this group, she hopes to help people with dementia maintain a regular life.
“If we’re not helping these people to deal with their daily lives dealing with this disease and making them feel comfortable within society and useful and purposeful, then what are we doing?” Sherman says. “That’s where we need to be heading, and that’s why I’m involved.”
Voices of Joy was started in 2017 after the church’s musical director, Mark Patterson, enjoyed a performance at a conference in Minneapolis by a choir composed of singers with memory disorders. Patterson, whose mother-in-law deals with dementia, decided to start a similar choir here. Joyful Voices is one of the first ensembles of its kind in Virginia.
“We had no idea how many choruses of this [type] are in the area,” Sherman says. “Come to find out we were one of the first in Virginia.”
Singing increases the quality of life for those with dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Singing in groups apparently results in the release of hormones associated with pleasure and the alleviation of anxiety and stress, according to the NIH website.
Sherman has noticed these benefits in the members of her choir.
“This carpet of sound within the chorus is for everybody,” she says. “Everybody seems to benefit from this activity. In fact, there’s a release of stress and [a] feeling of well-being, a feeling of dignity and purpose for all involved.
“We’re finding that there is no cure, and the pharmaceuticals do the best they can. But that feeling of well-being these singers and caregivers and even the volunteers are looking for, that’s coming not from the drugs, not from anything the doctors can do.”
Although based in a church, Joyful Voices welcomes members of all faiths and accepts people from all walks of life, Sherman says. The group resumes its regular schedule of practices at 10 a.m. on Thursdays on Jan. 9. A concert is set for 11 a.m. on May 2 at the church. New members can join at Joyful Voices’ website, joyfulvoiceschorus.org.
