Healing through Song
Dolores Day, Navy Veteran and first place winner in the Vocal Solo Broadway category, takes time to practice with Jillian Griego, Music Therapist, in the chapel of the Durham VA Medical Center. Ms. Day will perform Millwork, a song written by James Taylor, from the musical Working.
When Dolores Day, Navy Veteran and talented musician, takes the stage at the Creative Arts Festival in Boston, she hopes the performance gives the audience a powerful feeling of recovery that she gets when delivering a heartfelt performance. Taking first place in the Vocal Solo Broadway category, Ms. Day will pour her soul into making Millwork, a song written by James Taylor, an inspiring performance for all the Veterans in the audience.
Dolores Day knows the tremendous healing power that music can have on people. When she thinks of art as therapy, she smiles. “It gives you the opportunity to release, to reach inside your soul and allow you to express yourself. It allows the spirit to be free so it can heal,” she said. She would know. Ms. Day spent time in various hospitals both while serving in the personnel department of the Navy and as a volunteer Ombudsman after her 1972 discharge.
She was often seen playing guitar in order to help patients with their healing process. On one occasion, she visited children that had been badly burned by napalm. She didn’t just bring music to them; she brought comfort to their suffering and smiles to their sorrow. “It gave them something to think about other than their pain, music heals,” she offered. Not only does Ms. Day experience healing through song, but she is a really talented musician in the process. There is a difference between music as entertainment and music as therapy, and Ms. Day prefers the latter. In fact, she strives for “relaxing, empowering music that helps people. Only music has that power, it is the language of healing,” she said.
After her military discharge, Ms. Day studied music at Dowling College in New York. She graduated in 1983 with a bachelor of arts in music. She can play about a dozen instruments. Most of them you have never heard of or would not recognize. In fact, very few people know how to play the historical instruments she has come to know very well over the years. Ms. Day worked as a Historical Research Interpreter, a job that allowed her to conduct research and deliver believable character performances. These skills have allowed her to be a better, more confident, musical performer.
She chose to perform Millwork simply because it made her laugh. She was considering an Irish song, but after learning the Creative Arts Festival would be in Boston this year, thought Millwork was more appropriate because of the reference to Massachusetts in the lyrics. “Took up with a no good millworking man from Massachusetts” is a funny lyric. More persuasive to her were the other parts of the song, which give her warm thoughts about her dad and grandpa.
This competition and her love of music provide the “opportunity to feel the healing power someone else is experiencing at that time” she reports. Come Sunday night, this Veteran from the Durham VA Medical Center will do just that during her performance.
For more information, please visit: http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/caf/index.asp.
