TELLURIDE JAZZ: A MUSICAL PARTNERSHIP FOR CARE

13 Jul TELLURIDE JAZZ: A MUSICAL PARTNERSHIP FOR CARE

The 36th Annual Telluride Jazz Celebration/Festival and National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization are pleased to announce the first “Special Musical Partnership for Care.”

Telluride Jazz is among the seven music festivals across the country selected to help educate the general public on the benefits of hospice and music within hospice. NHPCO’s outreach program should reach more than two million people. (For those fortunate enough not to know, hospice assists patients with terminal illnesses and their families.)

Not an intuitive relationship? Think again.

For starters, take the expression, “Music soothes the savage breast.” The line came from the poem, “The Mourning Bride,” (1697) by William Congreve, an English playwright and poet.

In several of his most poignant scenes, Shakespeare dramatized music’s soothing effect on troubled spirits. Years later, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing recognized the beneficial power of music on the sick. In the 1990s, numerous investigations reinforced Nightingdale’s hunch. Research validated the effectiveness of music on adult patients in critical care settings, showing reduced anxiety states, physiological relaxation as evidenced by reduced vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate and respiration), and an improved ability to cope with the environment (of a hospital or hospice) and the critical illness itself.

A New York Times article (2009), lent additional heft to the idea that music  is somehow good for us.

“Listening to finer music and attending concerts on a consistent basis make your real age about four years younger,” said Dr. Michael F. Roizen, chief wellness officer of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.”Whether that’s due to stress relief or other properties, we see decreases in all-cause mortality, reflecting slower aging of arteries as well as cancer-related and environmental factors. Attending sport event like soccer or football offers none of these benefits.”

Healers of all sort try to harness the power of music for therapeutic purposes. There’s even a researcher in Salzburg, Austria, who describes herself as “the first musical pharmacologist” and dispenses “medication” in the form of music.

Which brings us back the brand new relationships with NHPCO and Telluride Jazz.

“Over the summer and throughout the fall we are partnering with music festivals across genres and the country to increase information and public awareness on the benefits of Hospice. We are working together with key music festivals, organizations and top musicians to bring the power of music, hospice and palliative care to veterans, children, and their families,” said Don Schumacher, CEO and President, NHPCO.

“We cannot think of a better fit. There are few organizations in the world that do as good a job at providing exceptional care as Hospice and we will be doing everything we can to help them increase awareness and succeed in their mission for years to come,” says Telluride Society for Jazz Executive Director Paul Machado.

The Telluride Jazz Festival welcomes 4,000 attendees from around the world to the region Friday, August 3- Sunday, August 5, 2012. NHPCO will be on site to help educate the music fans about their national network of care facilities and in-home services.