Symphony soothes the sick at St. E's

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Among the small audience that assembled in the St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital Chapel to hear the Youngstown Symphony Chamber Orchestra present another edition of its Stained Glass Concert series were Mary K. and Bruce Wayland of Hubbard.

Mary K., a former music teacher at St. Stephen School in Niles, accompanied her husband, a patient at St. Elizabeth facing a procedure.

Speaking before the concert while the orchestra was warming up, the couple, both cancer survivors, talked about the soothing qualities of music.

“It relaxes you,” said Bruce.

“I think it has healing powers,” Mary K. emphatically said of music.

The Stained Glass Concerts are traditionally in churches, but the chapel at St. Elizabeth has 20 small stained-glass windows that technically fit the definition.

One of the features that made the concert special is that Bruce Wayland and other patients in the chapel were not the only people to hear the music.

The entire concert was piped through the hospital’s communications system to all the patients and staff.

“Music has healing powers,” said Randall Fleischer, conductor of the orchestra.

The Stained Glass Concert series is a way to get out into the community and spread this beautiful music.

“I can’t think of a better way to spend Sunday afternoons than playing beautiful music in beautiful venues for appreciative audiences,” Fleischer previously said.

The concert ranged from Mozart to America’s most famous composers, John Williams and Aaron Copland, and numerous others, mostly European, composers, ranging from ballads to folk music such as the “Maple Leaf Rag.”

While a collection was not taken at Sunday’s concert, Fleischer, in a pre-concert interview, said “we usually pass the hat.”

All of the money collected through the Stained Glass Series goes to the YSO’s youth program for concerts played at area schools.

“I’m told the live concert sparked such interest in one school that the band program nearly doubled,” he said.

“The reason I push this is because the graduation rate for students in music programs is higher than the norm; and when school budgets are cut, the first things to go are the arts,” Fleischer said.

The program was brought to St. Elizabeth by Paul S. Homick Jr., president of the Mercyhealth Foundation Mahoning Valley and interim vice president of mission and values. Homick is also a member of the YSO Board of Directors.

“We thought of this concert because of our emphasis on healing of mind, body and spirit. I believe YSO coming to the hospital provided a wonderful opportunity to bring comfort and healing through beautiful music throughout the entire facility,” he said.