Music can heal everyone — even those who are “voiceless.”
That’s according to Brandon Boyd, assistant director of choral activities and assistant professor of choral music education at MU School of Music, who spoke to 16 participants in a research discussion Tuesday in MU Townsend Hall.
Boyd opened the discussion with his experience of being an organizer and a conductor of the Interfaith Community Shelter Street Choir, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, group made up of the homeless.
At first, Boyd struggled with how to find choir members and what songs to perform. However, after eight weeks of rehearsal, his choir performed on Aug. 15, 2017, in the shelter.
What Boyd always had in his mind was motivating and inspiring the chorus members, he said.
“This experience was unreal to me,” Boyd said.
That’s not the only choir Boyd has been a part of.
As a doctoral student at Florida State University, Boyd volunteered with a glee club. Members of the club were Florida State students and those incarcerated in a prison for women, Gadsden Correctional Facility.
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