Episode 2: Singing for Parkinson’s Disease

On episode 2, we welcome Grenville Hancox who is well known as a teacher, performer and conductor initiating and researching music and health activities. He is artistic director of Canterbury Cantata Trusta charity he founded in 2012 developing a collection of singing groups including Sing to Beat Parkinson’s all demonstrating the principle of caring through singing. He is both Emeritus Professor of Canterbury Christ Church University and Honorary Professor at Kent University and was awarded the MBE for services to Music in 2005 and a Civic Award by Canterbury City Council for services to the community through music in 2006.

Yoon Irons, a leading researcher, singer and qualified music therapist. Her research has focused on using singing to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of people with chronic health conditions and disabilities. Her past and current research projects include singing interventions for children with cystic fibrosis, and adults with chronic pain, Parkinson’s, Aphasia and spinal cord injuries. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals, including Cochrane Systematic Reviews. Currently, she is a senior research fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Arts in Health, University of Derby (UK) and an adjunct research fellow at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

Rachel Hynes, a Scottish based singing for health practitioner who was a vocal Leader on the inaugural Memory Spinner’s Project at Scottish Opera, a collaborative Dementia Singing Group with Alzheimer’s Scotland, is singing leader working with Common Wheel, a mental health music charity based at Gartnavel Hospital and has trained with the British Lung Foundation, learning ‘Singing for Breathing’, to help with breath management in people with long term lung conditions such as COPD, Asthma, IPF and Bronchiectasis.

The show is presented by Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, who is Principal Investigator of the Network.

The show’s producer and editor is Sophie Boyd.

Below, we have provided links to resources mentioned on the episode.

More details about the Network

Website: https://portal.rcs.ac.uk/scotland-singing-for-health-network/

Get in touch: singing-for-health@rcs.ac.uk

Twitter: @ScotSingHealth

Remember to Tweet us with #changetheworldonesongatatime

Links to organisations and research mentioned in the episode can be found on our website.

Music featured in the episode:

Intro music: Free Over the Fields (ID 1622) by Lobo Loco (licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License)

Outro music: Fire Fire, sung by the Ayrshire Parkinson’s Community Singers, recorded by Rachel Hynes.

‘Fire Fire’ is a popular song performed by community singing groups. It has passed on from leader to leader, with permission to use and thus evolved as it is often learnt by ear and passed on through performance.