'If they know the song, they'll definitely sing along'

SUMMER LIVING:A new initiative is bringing songs into hospitals and older people's facilities, and volunteers are needed to keep the music playing, writes KEVIN COURTNEY

THE SUN pours through the large windows of the auditorium as the audience files in slowly to take their places. They’re a quiet, well-behaved lot – they won’t be doing any jumping around or stage-diving, but if they like what they hear, they will clap their hands and tap their feet. And if they know the song, they’ll definitely sing along.

The performers stand against the back wall, waiting their turn to go onstage. It’s tough enough to get a gig these days, so when an opportunity comes up to perform in front of a receptive, discerning audience, most musicians and singers will jump at the chance. But this isn’t your average crowd of teens and twentysomethings, and this isn’t your usual rock’n’roll gig. This is a concert staged especially for older people, and the venue is not the O2 or the Academy, but the auditorium at St Mary’s Hospital in the Phoenix Park.

Entertaining the Elderly is a new idea started up by Dermot Kirwan of Friends of the Elderly. It’s only been going a month, but already it’s looking like becoming a fixture of the musical events calendar.

“We visit elderly people who live alone in their homes,” explains Kirwan, “and we also visit them in the hospitals. They’re not chronically sick, but they’re in long-term hospital wards, and they’re bored to tears, because most busy hospitals aren’t geared towards recreational facilities. So we decided to put a call-out to anyone who likes entertaining, or playing guitar, through the local newspapers and radio stations, and we got a massive response back, and it’s still rolling in.”

Kirwan is hoping to build an online database of artists willing to give up some of their time to sing a few songs for older people. They don't have to be accomplished singers or musicians, they just have to be able to hold a tune – preferably an older tune. It's a confidential database so if, say, Bono or Christy Moore fancy popping around to belt out Bador Ride On, they can do it discreetly.

A few well-known artists have already expressed an interest in performing, including country-roots singer Niall Toner and the Irish Rat Pack.

"I used to sing for my grandmother," says singer-songwriter Michele Ann Kelly, who is here to perform a song from her new album, Songs That Saved My Life, plus an old favourite of her late grandmother's, Danny Boy. "We used to visit her in her nursing home, and I'd be shocked to find out she spent most of her day sitting by the window, with nothing to keep her mind occupied."

The objective of Entertaining the Elderly, says Kirwan, is to provide people in long-term nursing care with some regular outside stimuli. “They might see the same familiar faces every day, so it’s nice to have an outsider to interact with them – it brightens up their day and changes the routine.”

First up is soprano Claire Allen, who performs songs from musicals such as Oklahoma!and South Pacific. They go down a treat. Next up is a young balladeer named Matthew Lennon (no relation to John), who pushes the right buttons with such anthems as Christy Moore's Ordinary Manand The Fields of Athenry.

Kirwan is hoping to get enough artists on the database to provide regular entertainment to every nursing home and older persons' facility in the country. He's planning on e-mailing all 1,200 artists listed in the 2009 Hot Press Year Bookand inviting them to volunteer.

With bands and artists performing at night-time, Kirwan reckons most of them will have some free time during the day, so what’s to stop them coming around and doing a few songs before the soundcheck?

Michele Ann Kelly ends her set with a fine version of the Everly Brothers' Dream, and then it's time for the final act, brothers Michael and David Courtney aka the Fresh Faces. Aged 27 and 18, Michael and David were one of the first to respond to Kirwan's call-out, playing a show earlier this month in the same hospital. Age, however, proves no barrier for this pair, and they bring the concert to a rousing end with songs such as Johnny Cash's I Walk The Lineand Steve Earle's Galway Girl.

Okay, so who’s next? Just call Dermot Kirwan and don’t forget your guitar.

www.friendsoftheelderly.ie