Hospital harpists' concert to strum dose of serenity

Larry Burke, who had gone through open-heart surgery, sat eating lunch in his room at Providence Everett Medical Center. He was to be discharged that day, and his wife and two sons were with him.

Jeri Howe, a harpist, smiled and introduced herself, and set up her wooden harp and stool. She began to play. Burke, in a hospital gown, smiled as the rippling notes filled the room.

He liked the music. More importantly, so did his heart.

Outside the room, his cardiac monitor showed steady, even heartbeats, with no fluctuation or irregularity.

That was part of the hospital's "musical medicine," a harp program called Sacred Harmonies at Providence. On a referral basis, harpists play for patients in their rooms.

The program, started in 2003, employs two harpists, Jeri Howe and Claudia Walker, for 32 hours a week at the hospital's Pacific and Colby campuses.

The soothing music has helped many: babies in neonatal intensive care, mothers on bed rest and patients near the end of their lives.

Several harpists will be featured in a public Strings of Light concert Sunday afternoon at Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett.

The concert is free, though donations will be accepted toward the harp program.

Tim Serban, the director of mission integration and spiritual care at Providence, had heard of a harpist training program though the Chalice of Repose project, which was then in Missoula, Mont.

"The program was set up to have two harpists to play in rhythm to the heart of the patient that was dying, metered music that was meant to be in time with the person's breath and heart rate," Serban said. "They would play together with the patient."

To become credentialed music thanatologists, harpists train for three years in the "therapeutic use of music to assist the dying," Serban said.

But at Providence, the program has been applied to help patients in all stages of distress and discomfort.

"When it came out, it was a great complement to fit in within the spiritual-care department," Serban said.

"We've had doctors who have written an order into the patient's record to provide the prescriptive music.

"When the harpist gets a referral, she will check in with the chaplain, bring her full-sized harp into the hospital, wheel it through the halls and bring it into the direct-patient-care areas."

Serban said that when a harpist moves into a room with a patient, "they are complementing the environment. It releases the tension in the room where everyone can just be with this person."

Prescriptive music is different from entertainment, and the music — often contemplative music or hymns — reflects that.

"This is not top-40 harp," Serban said.

Sunday's public concert will feature less bedside music than contemplative classics, performed by professional harpists with decades of experience. Several of them are featured on a new compact disc titled "Loom of Love." It will be sold at a reception after the concert.

"I think music itself, but especially the harp, penetrates a layer of the soul that we don't allow to be opened sometimes," said Ann Gibson, who provides administrative support for mission integration and spiritual care at Providence.

Serban said it was a "mental leap" when they introduced the idea, but he and his staff found no resistance to the concept, though sometimes people are a bit surprised to find a harp in the hospital.

"Most people are very intrigued," said Howe, the first harpist to work at Providence. Howe, who trained with the Chalice of Repose Project, has been playing for more than 20 years. She began playing therapeutically in 1991, working through her church with AIDS patients.

"They would lay on the floor by the harp, and ... it meant so much to them," Howe said.

It's transformative work for a musician. Last year alone, the harpists provided more than 2,200 vigils for patients at the hospital.

Whether it's playing for someone who is dying or for babies in neonatal intensive care, "it's such a privilege to be there, and I've been doing it long enough that I can just go into the sacredness of the music," Howe said.

"It's like a container — it holds me, it holds the sacredness. It's just experiencing that mystery of life."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com