Board of Directors

Ruth Ann Watkins, President

Charlotte Damron, Vice President

Mel Washburn, Vice President

Mary Ann Schwartz, Vice President   

Marcia Opp, Secretary

Robert Spoerri, Treasurer

Harvey Adelstein

Neelum T. Aggarwal, M.D.
David Baker

John A. Bross

Armand Cerbone

Larry Elkins

Marjorie Freed

Jack Hartray

Christopher Horsch

Barbara Koren 

Carol Rosofsky

Lois Stuckey

Dirk Vos 

Advisory Council

  Henry B. Betts, M.D.

Robyn L. Golden

Robert B. Lifton

Warner Saunders

Joanne G. Schwartzberg, M.D.

Michael Spock

Immediate Past President  

Dianne S. Campbell

Founding Executive Director 

What is Lincoln Park Village?

With one phone call or mouse click, members have access to a
full range of activities, events and services--all delivered with customized attention and  

designed to build strong
neighbor-to-neighbor connections and friendships.  

The Member-Plus Program ensures that residents on modest fixed incomes can join the Village and have funds for services.  

Serving Chicago's Lake View, Lincoln Park and Near North communities, Lincoln Park Village is a unique resource--professional, yet neighborly and close by--available to you right now and 

as your needs change.   

Call us! Join us!

773.248.8700

2502 N. Clark St.,  

Chicago, IL 60614

p. 773.248.8700  f. 773.248.8181

www.lincolnparkvillage.org 

info@lincolnparkvillage.org 

Village Sponsors

May 2013  

• Remaining in our own homes is a high priority for most older adults, and providing vetted resources to help us to do so safely is part of the work the Village does.  Read more about emergency call systems and one such tool--a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS)--and about a special pricing offer from Intel-GE Care Innovations by clicking here. 
• Just this past Saturday some twenty-six member households benefited from a corps of students from DePaul's St. Vincentian Service Day and other young volunteers who flipped mattresses, organized closets, got ready for gardening, moved heavy furniture, helped with computer issues and more. Rave reviews from everyone who was helped!
• Thirty-six members and guests enjoyed free tickets to two dress rehearsals of Oklahoma! at the Lyric Opera, thanks to Village member Sylvia Decker and Northern Trust. Some landed box seats!

I can guarantee that there is always something new and better at Lincoln Park Village. Join us!

Dianne S. Campbell

Founding Executive Director

This issue of the Village Newsletter puts music in the spotlight.

On a deeper level, the choice of music and its powers gives us all a chance to consider an art form we often take for granted. Most every aspect of our lives is touched with music, from the songs of birds to smart-phone rings to the sounds of a symphony playing Stravinsky or Gershwin. 

And information about the power of music is sneaking up on us. For the last couple of decades, neuroscientists in particular have trained their sights on the ability of music to exercise the brain, to bring back memories, and otherwise to connect us to ourselves ... and to others.

So please read first about the upcoming gala Village event and join us in the fun.

Meet a sampling of Village members who shared with member Catherine Rategan how music empowers and enriches their lives. (For this article we did not revisit professional musicians who happen to be Village members-blues and boogie-woogie pianist Erwin Helfer, for instance, or beloved children's folk singer Ella Jenkins, or Chicago Symphony violinist Fred Spector.)

Finally, still on topic, let yourself be amazed, or at least amused, by snippets of information about music's power. 

                                                           --Susan Nelson, Editor

Come Celebrate the Launch of  

Lincoln Park Village's Fifth Year! 

You are invited to join our growing Village community on Monday, June 10, at the Chicago History Museum for an evening of music, friendship and fun, from start to finish. 

Come and enjoy music with your friends and neighbors. Experience the power of music on both body and soul. Hear good, live music of different genres. Learn more about music's connections to the brain....And learn about the power of Lincoln Park Village as it celebrates its fourth anniversary, 360+ members strong!

Here's the Lineup:

• A festive reception--meet, greet, eat and drink--will begin at 5:00 PM.

• The "Power of Music" program will begin at 6:30 PM with noted music educator and flutist Dr. Roy Ernst, professor emeritus at the Eastman School of Music.

Be prepared for musical surprises throughout the evening. And also for...

Here's the Lowdown:

Great Fun as Well as Great Benefit

The funds the Village raises through our Anniversary Celebration and Benefit provide essential support for the services and initiatives that make the Village unique--especially the Member-Plus program, which enables all neighbors, regardless of income, to join and integrate fully into Village life. Nearly twenty percent of our membership currently is supported through Member-Plus. 

Here are three ways you can be involved:

1. Join the Host Committee 

Host Committee members receive six tickets to the event and are listed on selected event announcements and in the program book.  You can join the Committee at one of three levels: $300, $500 or $1,000.

Dianne & Tom Campbell

Jack Hartray 

Mary Ann Schwartz & Richard Brewer

Pam & Mel Washburn

Ruth Ann & Tom Watkins

Charlotte & Larry Damron

Betty Dayron  

Barbara Koren 

Carol Rosofsky & Bud Lifton 

Marcia Opp & Jon Ekdahl

Katherine & James Zartman

Susanne & David Baker

Judy & John Bross

Marjorie & Harvey Freed

Dorothy & Robert Hernquist

Carolyn & Walker Johnson

Madelyn MacMahon

Baila & Irv Miller 

Rush University Medical Center

Greta & Richard Salem

Emily & Bob Spoerri

Liz Ware & Wally Shah 

2. Become a Sponsor

We are seeking sponsorships from companies and businesses, as well as from generous individuals.  Contribution levels range from $1,500 to $7,500.  Sponsors receive recognition at future Power of Music-related events throughout the year, recognition for one year in our newsletter and on our Web site and blocks of tickets to the June 10 event, depending on sponsorship level.

Please call Dianne Campbell, 773-248-8700, to discuss the opportunities to support the Village by becoming a Host or a Sponsor.  

3. Spread the Word

Share this exciting evening with friends and neighbors. The flyer here includes a ticket order form and more information.

See you June 10th for an unforgettably upbeat evening!

Meet Dr. Roy Ernst: 

Dr. Roy Ernst's work mirrors the goals and achievements of the Village movement itself. In 1991, Dr. Ernst started the first New Horizons Band at Eastman School of Music for the purpose of creating a model program that emphasized entry and reentry points to music-making for older adults. The New Horizons International Music Association, which he founded, now includes more than 200 New Horizons bands in cities throughout the world.  As Dr. Ernst explains:  "A lot of things don't get better as we age, but one thing that does get better is that we have a great deal of life experience to bring to being very expressive--and particularly to playing music."  

Read more about Dr. Roy Ernst by clicking here.

By Catherine Rategan

The membership rolls of Lincoln Park Village contain a treasury of extraordinary people who recognize the power of music, both to maximize their own lives and to connect them to others. Following is a sampling of some of our members and their comments about the power that music has in their own lives.

Laurel Baer has a dual identity--she is the dedicated writer and compiler of the Village's weekly Member Memos, and she is also as a singer. Until recently, she was a second soprano with the Northwestern University chorus, made up of more than a hundred community members. "I got to sing all the great choral works and requiem pieces," she says. "I'd never gotten vocal training, other than what I received from various choir directors. And I always felt so fortunate that someone with my limited talent could sing at that level. I'd rate my voice as just adequate," she says, "but to perform that level and magnitude of music was thrilling." Laurel took piano lessons as a child and sang in the chorus, first at New Trier High School, next at the University of Michigan, then with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago. When asked what advice she offers to other would-be musicians and singers, Laurel says, "You're never too old to pursue an interest in music. It's so satisfying, and there are so many ways to add the power of music to your life."

John Bross retired from his post at Northern Trust Company in 2001, and today, thanks to his many interests, he's busier than ever. This is due in part to his role as a baritone in the Great Lakes Dredge and Philharmonic Society, which last year celebrated its 75th anniversary as an all-male holiday caroling group. Members wear old-timey top hats and scarves and sing traditional carols at various locations, including the Rehabilitation Institute, the Newberry Library, the Racquet Club and children's hospitals. One of the group's favorite performance venues is The Admiral on the Lake, where John serves on the Board and also acts as liaison to Lincoln Park Village. "I enjoy the social interaction of the group. But once we're done for the holiday season, none of wants to hear any more holiday carols until the following October, when we resume our rehearsals." He took voice lessons when he was in his 50s, a move he describes as part of his mid-life crisis. John also plays the piano and the harmonica. "It's so fulfilling to have music travel through your body and out your fingers or your throat," he marvels.

John Craib-Cox began piano lessons in the Fine Arts Building when he was six years old. That lasted only a few years, but he resumed music lessons just a few years ago. His interests include ragtime, Broadway musicals from the late '20s by Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart and the music of French composers such as Milhaud and Ravel; he's also a fan of Brazilian tango composer Ernesto de Nazareth. John also teaches part time and does design restoration, where he attempts to recreate and restore interiors of commercial and retail buildings from the past. "Music is enjoyable in so many ways," he says. "It can be a solitary pursuit or a group experience for me. It's good for the brain because you have to look at the notes on the page and translate those to the piano. It generates an instant reward and lets you  concentrate on something with a beginning and an end."

Del Hall took ukulele lessons for three months at the Old Town School of Folk Music but stopped when he realized the focus there was on Hawaiian music. He then launched out on his own, and his aim is to play "You Always Hurt the One You Love,"which was performed to a ukulele accompaniment in the 2010 movie "Blue Valentine.""I'm still practicing," he says, "using the techniques from Ukulele for Dummies. 

"The ukulele is very popular now, and it's something I always wanted to do. I love the simplicity of it and being able to sing along with it." Del was born in New Orleans, where music seems to be in the blood of so many residents. "I could whistle before I could talk," he recalls. "I was known as a wunder-kid. My mother used to push me around in a stroller, and I would whistle for people." Del worked in the news business for many years as a cameraman for CBS News. Six years ago he and his wife, Ginger, shuttered their video production company on Jackson Boulevard just west of Racine. "Today, I whistle by ear and can whistle while I play the uke. My two talents are photography and whistling."

At 92, Tom Hardie is one of the oldest members of the Village. And he retains his interest in music, which began when he was a child, when he sang in the church choir and hoped to become a professional pianist. But that dream was dashed when Tom lost the tip of his little finger in an accident. He turned instead to singing baritone roles and conducting, and he joined the music faculty of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. At one point, he took his choir to perform in Europe. He also spent a summer at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Eventually the university offered him and other faculty members a $30,000 bonus to retire early, and he was free to pursue other interests. "At one point, I became a dog walker to earn extra income," he recalls--"and I got to know Chicago pretty well." Although he no longer sings, he still plays the piano, which he bought with a bequest from his mother earmarked specifically for that purpose. Tom still attends the opera and concerts, and he loves watching baseball. "Music keeps me interested in life and makes my life so much richer," he says. "I've worked all my life to encourage students and help them choose music as a career."

Chris Horsch is a retired attorney who loves to play the tuba. He started with piano lessons when he was six; when he was in fifth grade, the band director asked him which instrument he wanted to play, and he unhesitatingly chose the tuba. "That was it," he says, "I got hooked." Chris's father loved music too but warned him that if he chose to become a professional musician, he'd probably starve. So Chris made the law his profession. Now he plays in the Ravenswood Community Orchestra, a 45-member group that meets at St. Ben's Church on Irving Park and gives three concerts a year, each preceded by eight to ten rehearsals. "There's a lot of fellowship in this group," he says, "and the rehearsals are a great outlet. We tend to play a little over our head, but it's better than playing under our head." He also plays in a quintet, which meets weekly in the kitchen of his home, where he and his wife, Patty, have lived for 38 years and raised three children. For the last two summers, Chris has attended the Interlochen Arts Camp in Northern Michigan, where he plays in the adult band camp. "Most of the members are fairly senior people; many of them very good players." His advice to others interested in the power of music is direct: "If you ever played, take it up again. I recommend it highly. There are lots of closet musicians, and I'm always surprised by the number of groups that have come out of the woodwork."

Carol Rosofsky was challenged about five years ago by a teenage grandson who is also a jazz drummer. He agreed to jam with her if she tried to learn jazz, so Carol embarked on a journey that started with jazz lessons via telephone and Skype, then went on to private lessons at Merit School of Music and now includes participating in DePaul's New Horizons Jazz Ensemble. Carol studied classical piano throughout her childhood. Her pianist mother was a model accompanist who performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of renowned conductor Frederick Stock, so music was ingrained in her family: It was something they'd always made together done around the piano throughout the generations. Carol finds jazz a huge challenge. "I'm learning a lot," she says, "and I'm as interested in the process as in the playing because it's such a challenge. Jazz piano is nothing like classical piano. It requires you to get off the beat and improvise. I'm not very good at that, even though I work hard at it. It's difficult to hear the complicated rhythms, especially when you're accustomed to reading music with a regular beat. As an adult, I'm acutely aware of how I learn and, more importantly, how I don't learn. At this age, I'm able to say to a teacher, 'I understand what you're saying, but I need another way of looking at it,' something I wouldn't have had the nerve to say as a youngster. I'm as interested in recognizing how I'm learning as what I'm learning. It's part of mindfulness."

Carol Senderowitz began taking guitar lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music in hopes it would relieve the arthritis in her hands. The lessons continued for 18 months, and as long as she maintains her daily practice regimen, the guitar helps control the pain in her hands. "I grew up playing the air guitar and always wanted to learn music," she says, "but I can't read music and never played an instrument. One nice thing about the school is that they teach beginners and novices both." She started out by using a left-handed guitar. But the school hands out chord charts for right-handed players, so eventually Carol transferred to a right-handed instrument. Though her first job was at a rock 'n' roll radio station in Pittsburgh, where she rubbed shoulders with the performers of that day, "I've always been a folkie," she says. "Today I meet many new young folk performers when I go to concerts at the Old Town School. I love the concert space there. They bring in new blues and country performers as well as folk." Among her established favorites are Tom Rush, Kris Kristofferson and the Sons of the Never Wrong. "I'm happy to report that folk music is alive and well."

Sandy Tice loves opera and also country and Western music, she says, "probably because they both tell a story." She started singing in the fourth grade, studied voice until she was 35, and continued to sing for the next 10 years, until she began to lose her voice. "I sang opera for a while and then just sang at parties," she says, "and now I sing with my smart phone and hope the neighbors don't mind." Sandy describes herself as a lyric coloratura, the kind of voice that's often showcased in roles such as the Queen of the Night aria in Mozart's "The Magic Flute." But she confesses that she doesn't think she could have made it in the world of opera and didn't much like the environment or the people in the world of popular music. While she enjoys the concerts at the DePaul Music School, Sandy confesses to spending most of her time working. A cognitive scientist, she began as a reliability engineer on the trajectory system for the Saturn I space project. Today, she helps business organizations develop high performance decision-making systems.  

Jim Zartman plays the harmonica, the banjo and the folk and country fiddles. But it's his lifelong love affair with the violin that consumes a great deal of his time and attention. Today, Jim still plays the same violin his mother bought him when he was 10. He uses the instrument--a Ficker made in 1924--when he plays regularly as part of an informal chamber music group. Jim also serves as president of the Board at the Chicago School of Violin Making in Skokie, which next year will add a new three-year program on violin maintenance and repair to its core curriculum. Five years ago, on his 80th birthday, he received as a gift a violin made at the school. "When I was a child, our teacher handed out the violin," he recalls. "My mother was a music teacher and a stickler for discipline, and she made me practice an hour a day before school." He kept up his music studies all the way through Harvard Law School. And now that he's retired from 40 years as a trust and estate lawyer, he's free to devote himself to the violin. Although he no longer practices an hour a day, he increases his practice schedule when he and his colleagues make a commitment to play for a church organization or other group. "Chamber music is the ultimate in music-making," he says. "Professional string players say chamber music is most satisfying because it's a mutual emotional experience; you communicate musically with each other in interpreting the music you're playing. It's thrilling when it works, even though it's so hard to do it right. You have to emote together."

In 2007, neurologist, author and psychiatry professor Oliver Sacks, M.D., published Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. In that landmark book, observations from the best-known proponent of the powers of music on the brain range from the simple to the complex:

            "Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears--it's a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ears. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more--it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury but a necessity."

***

"Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring its memory."

***

            "The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all of the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain...."

But where did music originate? Here are some snippets to consider:

• It's sometimes advanced that some, perhaps many, primitive cultures believed certain songs or chants evoked the presence of supernatural beings or deities.

• Priests in pre-Columbian societies who calculated the calendar and astrological measurements of heavenly bodies and supervised ceremonies may also have used forms of music to cure the sick.

• Ancient Greeks, Homer and Aristotle among them, examined the therapeutic effects of music on the ill and believed that music could heal both body and soul. Plato is quoted as having said, "I would teach children music, physics and philosophy, but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning."

• The Old Testament recounts at least the tale of David playing the lyre to cure King Saul of his problems.

• Native Americans used drumming with guided imagery to produce an altered state of consciousness.

• Warring peoples rallied to the drumming and chanting they created ... and so did celebrants of many other public events, not all of them bellicose in nature.

As early as the 18th century, students of Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote dissertations that focused on music as a therapeutic process. Dr. Rush himself was said to be a big supporter of using music in his process of treating patients with medical illnesses.

But today's recognition of music with its unexpected powers of healing began after World Wars I and II. In the aftermath of both wars, musicians were invited to veterans' hospitals to help the staff reach soldiers who had suffered "shell shock" in combat.

In time, the musicians' success in dealing with the emotional and physical trauma of veterans indicated a need to standardize their efforts. This led to the beginning of music therapy as it is now known. In 1944, Michigan State University established the first music therapy degree program in the world.

Music therapists are trained to understand how to apply melody, rhythm, tone, harmony, pitch and lyrics to help effect meaningful changes in psychological and physiological human processes. Their work goes far beyond the anecdotal listening and feeling and improved spirits from hearing music that we know and like.

Psychiatrists and physicians working in VA hospitals with veterans in the 1950s, then, were the first U.S. health care practitioners to formally begin to use music as standardized therapy for patients. They later began to work with children and adults in psychiatric settings and in the treatment of developmental disorders.

By the 1970s music therapy had evolved beyond specialized fields of psychiatry and rehabilitation to nursing homes and to private hospitals assisting cancer patients to resolve emotional or psychological issues. Now music therapy is a common part of services offered by hospice and other health care institutions to help promote a patient's physical, mental and spiritual well-being. It is used to help neurological impairments in the elderly, the developmentally disabled, a range of issues in mental health and physical disabilities and substance abuse; it has been found to be effective with school age and early childhood patients as well as patients with Alzheimer's disease and with the terminally ill.

In August 1991, during a U.S. Senate panel called to learn more about music therapy, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said, " Simply put, music can heal people." Accounts from the time stated that until that hearing, Congress had never before "directly addressed the question of music as preventive medicine" and as "a [possible] therapeutic tool for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, strokes and depression."

In 2000, in the PBS series "The Healing Arts," host Bill Moyers spoke of music's ability to evoke emotions and memories. That ability "gives [music] powers that can be experienced any time we turn on the radio....Throughout time, music compositions have been used to enhance comfort, build community and effect healing."

In the years since, music increasingly is being seen not only as a tonic for the soul but also a pathway to better understanding the brain.

So let's rejoice in the still-unfolding power of music that will be played and shared at the Village's June 10 celebration!

                                                                 --S.N.

On April 17, fifteen Village members traveled to Walter Payton High School to receive help from student computer wizards. It was the second such collaboration, and, like the first, this session turned out to be a gratifying experience for both Village members and for their young teachers.

Renee Harrison wanted to get an expert opinion on the capabilities of her laptop and find out what kind of new one she should get. She said of her young mentor, "He was the leader of the group, a very bright young guy who kept asking if I had any more questions. When I ran out of questions about my laptop, he then proceeded to show me how to text." Best of all, Renee was advised she could keep her current laptop.

Susan Tennant said her time at Payton was great. "I had two helpers, both enthusiastic and willing to work through my list. When they got through all that, they showed me some apps for my iPhone and introduced me to Sirius."

Susan Tennant

Renee Harrison

Catherine Rategan said, "The kids were awesome and smart. If they didn't know something, they knew how to find out. I wanted to download Twitter onto my phone but learned that it was too old for that. I now have a new phone and can use Twitter." 

Del Hall attended the technology session to take these wonderful pictures, and his wife Ginger accompanied him, which gave her the opportunity to observe what was going on around the room. Here is what she saw:

"The intergenerational connection was so easy. I was surprised at how smoothly everyone worked together. The kids were impressed by how much the adults already knew....The[y] had the key to opening doors and were experiencing the joy of teaching that comes with the special give-and-take of a good relationship."

Intergenerational encounters are a very important part of our Village life. They occur on a daily basis between our student interns and members and frequently throughout the year with programs such as this. Such encounters always demonstrate that the experience is enriching for all.

Bruce Wagner

Dick Karlov

Based on the success of these first two collaborations, the Village hopes to continue computer training for members with Payton High School students in the fall.