By Andy Spearman
Highlanes Gallery is a great place to sit for a while and enjoy the peace and quiet – a valuable commodity these days. Sometimes I sit alone in silence but as often as not I end up in conversation with someone, mostly strangers, about the current exhibition or anything at all.
Last Thursday I visited the Highlanes to photograph a very special musical event. The music was being played by Liam Merriman on guitar and Grainne Hope on cello, I love the cello, I could sit all day and listen.
But, unusually for a concert, this gig was not so much about the players as their audience who were all residents of local nursing homes, many of them living with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, like a thief in the night, it takes away the victim’s ability to cope with daily life.
It is the cruellest of diseases and families of victims often say that it takes away their loved ones right before their eyes. They are still there physically but are no longer able to cope alone such is the confusion in their brains.
Very soon after the music started on Friday though, a wonderful thing happened. People who had been sitting there not really knowing what was going on around them, began to sing along to the music from way back when.
It truly was a joyous thing to witness, one of those very special moments that underlines the power of music to soothe our souls in a world that sometimes can be difficult to fathom. I came away much the richer for the experience.
Thank you to Liam Merriman and Grainne Hope who are both members of The Waterford Healing Arts Trust’s Healing Sounds team of musicians. What you do is at the very essence of humanity.
