In the Headlines...
Musicians On Call
By: Nicole Roberge
Musicians On Call is an organization that provides music for patients in hospitals. From maintaining a CD Pharmacy to bringing live music to bedsides, Musicians On Call is filled with wonderful volunteers who understand what an integral part music plays in the healing process. MOC has brought in musicians ranging from Ozzy Osbourne to Avril Lavigne, and everywhere in between. This month, they will also be holding a fundraiser where several guitars and memorabilia will be auctioned off, as well as a special performance by John Mayer. But you don’t have to be a musician to help out. You can contact the organization to volunteer, or send in your old CD’s to be added to the CD Pharmacy. Dr. Leslie Faerstein, executive director of Musicians On Call, shares with us here the purpose of Musicians On Call, how it has changed people, and what you can do to help:
Tuned In Music: What is the primary purpose of Musicians
On Call?
Dr. Leslie Faerstein: Musicians On Call is a nonprofit organization that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of people in healthcare facilities. Unlike some organizations that only work with specific illnesses, we facilitate healing from all types of sickness through the power of music. We have already touched over 44,000 individuals through our volunteer performances (this includes patients, family members and caregivers).
TI: How did it begin?
LF: Musicians On Call (MOC) was founded in New York City in 1999 by Michael Solomon and Vivek Tiwary with the assistance of the Kristen Ann Carr Fund. After bringing the first musician on call, Kenli Mattus, to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to play in the general recreation area, the staff asked them if they would play in the rooms of patients too sick to leave their beds. In that moment, watching the reactions of the patients and their families, they knew they had to start a nonprofit that brought live and recorded music right to the bedsides of patients! Musicians On Call was born!
Thanks to the support from rock legend Bruce Springsteen, his managers and The Kristen Ann Carr Fund, Musicians On Call was able to raise the funds to start the organization. MOC officially began in September 1999 and continues to grow in delivering the healing power of both live and recorded music to patients in healthcare facilities.
TI: What are the bedside performances and what impact do you think that they have?
LF: The Bedside Performance Program are given by artists who give in-room performances for patients undergoing treatment or who are unable to leave their hospital beds. All musicians are accompanied by a volunteer guide who has been trained to work in the specific facility. The guide collects our statistics, is the liaison with hospital staff, introduces the musician to the patient and asks first whether the patient wants to hear some music and remains with the musician in the room during the performance. Occasionally, artists who are on tour visit and entertain at hospitals around the country under our sponsorship. Both volunteer musicians and guides go through training programs. The guides’ training is more extensive and involves both experiential and didactic. The guides also make a greater commitment to MOC and guide at least twice a month. Musicians’ commitment is a minimum of ten performances a year. That said, many do much more and one of our musicians, Kenli Mattus, did 55 last year as well as the Project Playback we did with a teen group at the Children’s Hospital At Montefiore.
On average, over 20,000 patients receive inpatient care on a daily basis in New York City hospitals. With such high numbers of people in healthcare facilities, opportunities for enhancing the quality of patient care, such as the Performance Program, are extremely beneficial. It has been demonstrated that live music can lower blood pressure, alleviate pain and reduce depression and anxiety in hospital patients. Since the beginning of the last century, the medical field has recognized that music helped veterans from the First and Second World Wars recover from both emotional and physical traumas. We now know that the one-on-one interaction between the musician and patient has a powerful effect. For a brief time, the patient can transcend being in a healthcare facility.
The impact can be profound. We have people who have had no sign of reacting while in the hospital smile or move their foot to the music. Recently, we were at a New York City hospital and a nurse asked the musician to go into a room where the patient was actively dying. She played and sang “What a Wonderful World” and the patient’s daughters sang along. The patient died minutes later. What an amazing way to leave this world. We also know that sound is the last sense to go when someone is dying (and the first to come when we are born). We have hundreds of stories about how patients AND the volunteers have been affected by the performance.
TI: In addition to these performances, you also distribute CD’s, concert tickets, and have a program where patients can record their own music. What are their reactions to these programs?
LF: We currently have 60 CD Pharmacies in facilities in the tri-state area, Philadelphia and Massachusetts. And we have a waiting list from many more facilities. We sent several hundred CDs with CD Discmen so that patients can listen to music in their beds, waiting for procedures, etc. We all know how music affects us – can make us happy, sad, reflect our moods and having familiar music in the hospital eases a patient’s experience. We always need donations of CDs and would love donations of gently used CDs as well as new discmen.
Concert tickets are great fun and we receive letters, particularly from the children who get them, that this was the first concert they ever attended. Many are from NYC urban areas which is to whom we tend to distribute the tickets and for those who can get to a show it can be one of the most exciting experiences!
Project Playback is a program that gives patients the chance to see their music recorded and produced. Special software enables patients to use a customized program to compose their own songs and work with professionals who will provide guidance. Thus far, we have produced 4 CDs with the Teen Cancer Group at Memorial who love working with a professional musician and having the finished product. We always have a CD Release party where the kids are the rock or hip hop stars, autograph their CDs, perform the song live, etc. Because we need funding to do this, it is not a regular ongoing program. We have, however, managed to do an average of one a year. Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and 1 with the teens at Children’s Hospital At Montefiore. We have received letters from parents, particularly after their child has passed away, thanking us for giving the child a creative experience that helped him or her transcend their treatments, pain and being in a hospital as well as having a recording of his or her voice. The kids, obviously, love this project.
TI: What different musicians have you worked with?
LF: Our programs are staffed by local volunteer musicians both here in NYC as well as in Philadelphia where we have partnered with WXPN, the nonprofit public radio station of the University of Pennsylvania. We are known in Philly as WXPN Musicians On Call. One of our early volunteers, before she made it big, was Norah Jones. The caliber of our volunteers is very high.
Many artists have made hospital visits and these include: Nils Lofgren, John Mayer, Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child, Jason Mraz, Marc Broussard, Ryan Cabrera, Vanessa Carlton, Nick Lachey, Avril Lavigne (twice), Mario Winans, Marc Roberge of O.A.R. and many others have supported us with donations of tickets, guitars, etc.
Some of the artists who have already helped with our mission include: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Nils Lofgren, The Who, Def Leppard, The Allman Brothers, Sting, Levon Helm, Hanson, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Britney Spears, The Goo Goo Dolls, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Dido, The Clarks, David Gray, Barenaked Ladies, Dave Koz, Billy Joel, Peter Frampton and Journey, Bon Jovi, Paul Simon, Tony Bennett, Matchbox Twenty, R.E.M., John Mellencamp, Melissa Etheridge, Kelly Rowland, Destiny’s Child, The Counting Crows, Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, Aerosmith, Elvis Costello, O.A.R., Jessica Simpson, Nich Lachey, Michelle Branch, Jason Mraz, James Taylor, Avril Lavigne, John Mayer and Eric Clapton.
TI: What are your “angel artists?”
LF: With the Angel Artists program, we are building a roster of up and coming recording artists interested in philanthropy who are willing to make Musicians On Call the beneficiaries of their charitable efforts. Activities include fundraising concerts, ticket donations and/or auctions, and awareness campaigns through their websites and email lists. The first Angel Artist act is O.A.R. New artists joining Angel Artists are recent Columbia Records signing Ari Hest and acclaimed folk-rock act Ollabelle, who toured the U.S. extensively last year as the opening act for Norah Jones, Diana Krall and Ryan Adams. As an example of what Angel Artists can do, O.A.R. mounted a successful email campaign among their fans to donate portable CD players that MOC distributed as part of its CD Pharmacy program to several New York City hospitals. In return, O.A.R. sent fans signed tee shirts and other exclusive merchandise.
TI: On January 31, you are having a guitar auction and performance by John Mayer to raise money for Musicians On Call. What are your expectations for this and do you have many similar events throughout the year?
LF: We have great expectations for this both in terms of fundraising to keep our programs going as well as exposure so that Musicians On Call becomes a commonly known organization. We have never done this before. It is our FIRST benefit. We have had small fundraisers but they have either been thrown by our wonderful volunteers (e.g., karaoke nights), Board members (intimate cocktail parties in their home). We have received enormous support from Z100 here in NYC and for three years in a row (2002, 2003, 2004) Musicians On Call has been their official charity, which has raised significant funds for us. We are very pleased that Q104.3 is the radio sponsor for this event.
We are very grateful to John Mayer for donating his time as well as to Cynthia Nixon who will be a special guest at the event.
TI: What overall effect have you seen, not only in patients, but also in artists, after the various forms of music have been exchanged?
LF: As I described earlier, the effects can go from having a nice few moments to something more profound – for both of them. Family members will often ask musicians to play for their sick loved one even if the patient hasn’t requested it directly before hand. Recently, a woman with terminal cancer married her fiancé in the hospital. The following day Musicians On Call was there for our weekly performance and played “Sea of Love” for the couple. They were so joyous since the wife came from Italy and there it is very important to be serenaded on your wedding. As soon as the musician left the room she called her family in Italy who called everyone and by the end of the musician’s time on that floor the husband found him to express such great gratitude on behalf of them as well as the whole Italian family! The musician was honored that he could make this gift in such a paradoxical situation – both great joy and great sadness.
TI: What has been the most rewarding experience for you with Musicians On Call?
LF: As a healthcare professional, for the past 30 years I can see how immediate and direct the experience is for both the patient and the musician. As a psychotherapist, it can take a long time before I see changes. Whenever I go to the hospital and see the reactions of patients I remember why I have to do things that may not be as much fun but that are crucial to keeping our programs going. One program is in a nursing home for people with AIDS. The patients there have almost no visitors and they know that they will not be going home from there. They are so happy to have our program that often they are waiting in their wheelchairs in the lobby to ensure that we’ll visit their rooms. THAT is the most rewarding experience for me. And working with so many young, talented and generous people is incredibly rewarding. For many of our volunteers, this is the first time they have made this kind of charitable contribution of their time. It has been such a gift for them that they recruit musicians for us as well. I love what we do at MOC and want to continue to expand to other cities and eventually internationally so that when someone goes into a healthcare facility, they know that music is part of their healing!
TI: How can people help and become involved?
LF: We always need more musicians and guides as we expand our programs. We need help with fundraising as well. People can log on to our Web site, www.musiciansoncall.org where they can fill out a volunteer application and email it to us. They can also call us here at 212-741-2709.
People can also send us their gently used CDs for our CD Pharmacy (must all be originals) and if they can send a new, still packaged CD Discman to go with the pharmacies that would be wonderful!