Montville students promote the healing power of music

Montville - Eighth-grade students in Judy Abrams' Adventures in Music class at Leonard J. Tyl Middle School have spent the entire year composing and arranging their own songs, sometimes coming in during study hall and after school to fine-tune their compositions.

Last week, they turned in the culmination of their efforts, a two-CD set of 28 songs ranging from upbeat to soothing. But they didn't present their work to Abrams; instead, they handed over copies to a representative from Connecticut Children's Medical Center, where they hope their music will help improve the lives of hundreds of young patients.

"For some of them, this is the first community service learning project they've done, and it's helped them to feel very important," Abrams said. "I'm extremely, extremely proud of every one of them for their time and effort."

They've also been selling the CDs for $5 apiece and donating all the proceeds to CCMC. Today, 13 of the students are scheduled appear on WFSB's "Better Connecticut" to help spread the word about their efforts.

Their music will be heard throughout the entire hospital, from waiting rooms to surgery, and the patients are already looking forward to hearing their work, according to Jenny Vacchio, the CCMC representative.

The project, now in its second year, has several sources of inspiration. For Abrams, it marks the realization of her childhood dream to help people through music. After attending a music therapy conference in eighth grade, she became very interested in the healing power of music.

"It can lower blood pressure, help people who have had a stroke learn to walk to a rhythmic beat and it can change people's moods and outlook," she said in an earlier interview with the Montville Times.

But more than 20 years ago, her 17-month-old nephew Daniel Smigiel was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Between 27 surgeries and two bone marrow transplants, Smigiel spent much of his life living in hospitals. He died at age 5, and Abrams never forgot the experience of spending time with him and all the other patients in children's hospitals.

"I knew that someday, with the memory of Daniel burning in my heart, I needed to do something with music therapy," she said. "This dream has always been in the back of my mind."

Rachel Olson, Smigiel's mother and Abrams' sister, spoke about the joy the project will bring to the patients and their families.

"If he would've known that another child made a CD for him when he wasn't feeling well, that another child was inspired to do something like that for him, he would've been thrilled," she said. "(Abrams) is my hero."

The two CDs, titled "Music Makes Everything Better," and "Music Beat," have his name printed on every insert, along with everyone else who helped make the project possible. The cover art was also done by students.

Amanda Hart, 14, used her own experiences for inspiration while composing the piece "Echoes" with another student. Her mother was in a medicated coma at the time at Yale-New Haven Hospital awaiting a liver transplant.

"I read that you can still hear (in a coma), so I thought about what I'd want to listen to," she said. "We're just glad that we can help, that we're not just kids."

Unfortunately, this might be the last year that the project can take place. The school's choral director is retiring, and since they cannot afford to hire a full-time replacement, she's being reassigned to teach chorus. The band director is taking over the Adventures in Music class, but according to Abrams, the number of classes and enrollment will be cut down a lot. She fears that the logistical and technological challenges of the project might be too much.

"I don't want to stop doing this if it can help a lot of kids," she said. "But I don't know; if it happens again, it won't be the same way."