Hume Con welcomes all abilities Bridge to Sing choir

The choir started in 2017 and provides an opportunity for engagement and music therapy for young people with an intellectual disability.

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Melanie Stampton has been attending the choir weekly for six years. She finds the music "soothing" and says it helps to remind her of happy times.

"I come because choir is relaxing and singing helps me because I have to think in my mind and try to remember songs," Ms Stampton said.

"I write it down and then I practise and then it slowly relaxes my mind. It calms me down and brings back the fun memories."

She described music as her "happy place" and said music helped to push away negative emotions.

"When I come here and we sing a song my mind remembers [those fun times]," Ms Stampton said.

"I sing and my mind relaxes so I can smile and be happy. If I put on music I'm just a different person because it pushes all the bad things away and memories come into your head of nice things."

Over the years Ms Stampton has gathered a folder of choir music and photos.

"I keep a lot of information like that as my memories; it helps me to remember them," she said.

Ms Stampton's happy music choices include Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi. She loves and connects to the lyrics.

"Bad medicine is what we need because no doctor can cure my disease; but we all need bad medicine to keep us happy," she said.

"I sang the song Peace Like a River at my nan's funeral because of the words. It was very hard but that was something that would never happen again. For my nan to hear me; I think she would have liked that. It was very special."

Choir director Clare Jones has over 12 years experience working with people who have an intellectual disability. She holds a Master of Music Therapy and has completed additional training in sensory processing, applied behaviour analysis, and vocational training and assessment.

"The choir members generally choose the songs," Ms Jones said.

"We've got a huge variety of songs from the 1940s all the way through to Justice Crew; country music; gospel songs; all kinds of things."

According to Ms Jones, Jo Fitzsimmons was pivotal in getting the choir off the ground.

Ms Fitzsimmons is the mother of 22-year-old choir member Maggie. She said it provided her daughter with more than just a place to sing and enjoy music.

"There's lots of things but especially the friendships. They all look out for each other and support each other and really praise each other's efforts," she said.

"And we've done a few performances along the way; at Harmony Day and Australia Day. Last year was our first production, which we did here at the Hume Con and that was a great success."

It was important to all choir members that the choir find a way to continue during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

"That's where the idea for the production came from because it was something that we could work towards over Zoom," Ms Fitzsimmons said.

The ability to meet over Zoom has also allowed the choir to welcome other members from across Australia.

"We have some friends that live in Crookwell and they sometimes can't get in here; one of our ukulele ladies moved to Brisbane so she sometimes joins in; we've got a girl in Griffith; and Maggie's boyfriend in Queensland joins in," Ms Fitzsimmons said.

"We even joined in from Europe when we were traveling."

The weekly choir is open to singers of all abilities and is held in the Paul Paviour Recital Hall in the main building of the Hume Con on Mondays from 4.30pm to 6pm. Cost is $150 for the term and sign up is available via the Hume Con website.

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