ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2008, the BRIGHT Singers gave a concert. Held in the atrium of a large metropolitan hospital, a venue renowned for the quality of its professional and semi-professional lunchtime concert series, the event would have been a cause for excitement and perhaps a few pre-concert nerves for any amateur group. For the BRIGHT Singers though a good deal more was also at stake. The atrium performance was, as the project’s music therapist and choir director, Sarah Wilson, noted in her project diary a few days prior to the event, ‘our first non-mental health venue performance – in a very public place’. (Sarah took over as convener of the BRIGHT sessions in 2007. She was then working half-time for BRIGHT and half-time for the NHS as a music therapist in the adjacent hospital. Because some of the BRIGHT personnel came over from the hospital and because Sarah had worked with others, since discharged, when they were hospital residents, Sarah and her activities bridged the two locations and networks.)
