ReadMichael Waye Hangs Up His Piccolo
—9 Aug, 2023
WASO HOP along to the Hospital
—30 May, 2023
WASO have been back visiting Perth Children’s Hospital this month, bringing joyful musical moments to patients, families and hospital staff members.
When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, one of WASO’s Community Engagement programs that had to be adjusted the most significantly was our Hospital Orchestra Project (HOP).
Usually, HOP would see WASO musicians visiting Perth Children’s Hospital to provide a range of performance and participatory music experiences. This includes musicians visiting wards and on-site classrooms at the Hospital, and chamber performances in foyer spaces and in the Hospital’s Auditorium for patients, their parents and hospital employees to enjoy. However, strict visitor restrictions during the pandemic made it difficult for our musicians to visit the Hospital in person.
Over the past few years, WASO have continued to engage with Perth Children’s Hospital through live-streamed performances and Q&A sessions with the musicians, and occasional in-person visits (when hospital permissions allowed). So it was a great feeling this month to have our HOP program hit full stride again with a performance and series of music-making workshops across two days.
These activities followed ward visits by WASO violinists Sunmi Jung and Kierstan Arkleysmith in March, who brought some much-needed respite to patients and families in the wards.
Sunmi and Kierstan perform for one of the ward patients.
Our Folk Songs performance was presented by long-time WASO collaborator Lee Stanley, who took patients, family members and hospital staff on a round-the-world journey through folk music. The WASO string quartet performed folk music from Hungary, Spain, Macedonia, Russia and Australia, with the Habenera a particular hit. Lee played ‘bullfighter’ with some of the children, and there was lots of dancing in seats for Bartók’s Pillow Dance.
Patient Maddi had the opportunity to blow the train whistle that guided the audience on their journey across the globe, and took a particular interest in Andrew Sinclair’s double bass at the end of the performance. Andrew was able to provide Maddi with a ‘hands-on’ experience with the bass – another activity we haven’t been able to do for a while!
Maddi gets a ‘hands-on’ experience with Andrew Sinclair’s double bass.
The following day, Stephanie Dean (violin), Jeremy Garside (cello) and Lee Stanley visited again, bringing some music-making workshops to the hospital. Children had the opportunity to experiment with percussion instruments and learn simple musical concepts, whilst getting some much-needed respite time away from their hospital beds and the wards. The children used some of the folk song words from the previous day’s performance and used them to create new songs, writing lyrics and creating a melody using the percussion instruments.
We’re glad to have the HOP program back in full force, bringing the healing power of music to those who need it most.
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