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New Trail [alumni magazine of the University of Alberta]
2004
If music soothes the savage beast, it can also help a medical intern relax.
That's the hope of the Department of Music, which offers the Hear's to Your Health concert series — four chamber music concerts a year, all held in the first-floor foyer of the Bernard Snell Auditorium in the Walter Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre.
U of A piano professor Patricia Tao coordinates the series. The idea, says Tao, is to bring the listeners "some sense of joy and relief, to feed their souls."
Joy and relief is the perfect prescription for the staff and visitors in a stressful hospital environment. "We want to reach medical faculty and students but also people who are coming into the hospital for maybe not good reasons," Tao explains, "it's for them too." The concerts are free and open to the public.
The repertoire is serious, the performers world-class, and the atmosphere relaxed. "We're trying to make it as informal and as people-friendly as possible," says Tao. The concerts are at 5 p.m., so listeners can catch a short concert after work.
David Cook of the University's medical faculty helps organize the series and hosts the concerts, introducing the performers and the musical pieces. The location, he says, is "intimate without being too crowded and has surprisingly good acoustics. We try to create an atmosphere that is friendly and informal — there is a brief reception afterwards with juice and cheese, and it gives the audience a chance to talk to the performers, something that does not happen easily in most concerts. The audience is much closer to the performers — it is the way chamber music is supposed to be!"
Tao was involved in a similar program in the Faculty of Medicine at State University of New York at Stony Brook. When she came to the University of Alberta two years ago, she talked to the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the time. D. Lorne Tyrrell, '53 BSc, '68 MD, about starting a hospital concert series at the U of A. He was all for it.
Tao believes the hospital is a good setting for the series. "For many people, there has always been this connection between science and music. I've met many scientists who just love classical music and I think many of these scientists grew up studying music, so it seemed like a natural audience; it brings something warmer and more humane to the atmosphere."
Faculty members from the U of A's music department perform for free. Concerts this year will also feature a number of musicians from the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
Tao would like to take the chamber music she loves to even wider audiences. "I'd like to bring the music anywhere," she states. "I think music should be more a part of our lives, and can be."