ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the author’s work, as a music therapist, with the CeleBRation Choir at the University of Auckland’s Centre for Brain Research. CeleBRation Choir was the first of several ‘neurological choirs’ in New Zealand, a distinctive framework to address the social and communication needs of diverse participants, as an alternative to separate treatment groups. Descriptions of the choir programme and participants’ most common diagnoses are enriched through examples of original songs and lyrics from the choir repertoire. The chapter concludes with a manifesto for community singing opportunities for diverse participants, as a human right. Group members complete quality-of-life measures to gauge their responses to changes they experience in singing which enhance their lives.
