[Home]  [Latest News] [Calendar]

Rainbow Hospice and Palliative Care hosts Chicago’s First Threshold Choir

Women’s Bedside Choir Makes its Debut in Chicagoland

 

Rainbow Hospice and Palliative Care hosts Chicago’s First Threshold Choir

 

 

(Park Ridge, IL) – Everyone here has a different story.  Some have a background with song and voice, others have little singing experience.  More than a few have their own strong memories and experiences with music and death.  The one thing in common for everyone at the inaugural meeting of the Rainbow Hospice Threshold Singers, is a joy of singing and a desire to bring the gift of voice to the very sick.

 

Threshold Choirs women singers trained to sing in groups of two and three at the bedside of those who are sick and dying.  The songs sung by these women are generally traditional or simple rounds, chants, lullabies and hymns that can be chosen to respond to musical taste and spiritual direction.

 

The concept of the Threshold Choir is also a relatively new phenomenon that began on the cusp of the new millennium.  Threshold founder, Kate Munger, took her own experience singing for a dying friend and brought together the first choir gathering in El Cerrito, California.  Since its inception, the idea of the Threshold Choir has spread from the original 15 members of Kate’s troupe to a phenomenon across more than 17 states nationally and over the Atlantic to the U.K. and Iceland.

 

For Grace Fill, the volunteer choir director for the Rainbow Hospice Threshold Singers, the love of music and the loss of a close family member connected her to singing.  After Grace went looking for a Threshold Choir, she found that the concept had not yet come to Chicago and decided to start her own group.

 

“I put a call in to Kate Munger in L.A. asking how I could join a Chicago Area choir.  There wasn’t one.  So I took that as my own call to start a choir and luckily Rainbow Hospice has been receptive,” says Fill.  “This is an example of how something good can truly come from something not so good.  Threshold Singing is not singing for entertainment or worship, but as a gift for comfort.”

 

Also in attendance at last week’s inaugural meeting was Casper Sunn, the director for the Madison Area Threshold Choir.  Sunn, like Grace Fill, was drawn to Threshold Singing when a close family member, her mother, was diagnosed with lung cancer and has been instrumental in providing advice for the new Chicago choir.

 

“My mom was a great singer and loved music.  After she got sick, whenever people would come over and ask what she wanted, she always asked for singing,” says Sunn, “We did all kinds of songs and group singing, and even when the disease took away her voice, she would request Jesus Loves Me because she knew how to sign the words for the song.”

 

Any women interested in joining the Rainbow Hospice Threshold Singers can contact Kathy Huber at 847-685-9900.  Practices are held on two Thursdays each month starting at 6:45pm in Park Ridge, IL.  Singers go through patient care volunteer training, but there are no auditions; the only requirements are a love of music and a desire to serve others.

Back to List