Conventional wisdom says you need a beautiful voice, musical training, and discipline to sing in a choir. You probably do need those things. Or so you'd think. But a group of determined people, guided by a conductor (Livio Girgenti) and a vocal coach (you can't wing it when you're doing this properly), can form a respectable choir without much musical experience or anything obviously in common. And here's the surprising part: psychiatric patients can sing in a real choir.
We're talking about "Coralmente"—an a cappella polyphonic choir born from the rehabilitation programs of the Mental Health Department at ASL 6 in Palermo. Conceived and directed by psychiatrist Giuseppe Romano, the project brings together weekly for roughly two hours: psychiatric service users (both inpatients and outpatients), their families, mental health workers, and volunteers.
The choir's repertoire is expansive—over 25 pieces ranging from Renaissance music to gospel, Christmas carols, and contemporary arrangements. In six years of performances, they have given more than 50 concerts at psychiatric conferences and other events, reaching schoolchildren, non-psychiatric institutions, and the general public.
We asked Dr. Romano why some family members participate alongside the patients.
What does this mean therapeutically?
The therapeutic purpose of this project—and the presence of families—comes down to one thing: care. We share a healthy emotional climate during rehearsals and pass it on to the audience. Coralmente is, in my view, a crucial opportunity for connection. In many cases, relationships between someone struggling and their family have been worn down by years of misunderstanding and helplessness—the family's inability to meet their loved one's needs. But the choir lets families discover capacities in their disabled relatives that seemed lost forever. They see beyond the illness. They rediscover the pleasure of doing things together, of watching self-esteem, independence, and dignity grow. I think we can fairly call this "promoting mental health."
What improvements have you seen?
The most significant are fewer hospitalizations—though this is true of all rehabilitation programs that strengthen a person's social network—plus better integration and healthier relationships, both with family and with others.
Beyond people with mental illness, do you have members with other disabilities?
Right now Coralmente has about 45 singers. Roughly 60 percent have declared disabilities—mostly psychiatric, but we also have an autistic young man, two young men with Down syndrome, four with intellectual disabilities, two with physical disabilities. The remaining 40 percent don't have "declared" mental health issues—though I can't rule it out; I'm a full choir member myself. Joking aside, what both our singers and our audiences notice is that integration doesn't erase difference—it highlights it, shows it as richness. That's good for fighting stigma and prejudice, which is another quiet goal of this project.
What performances have you done recently? What's next?
We recently performed at a conference organized by the juvenile court on rehabilitation for detained youth. On May 9, we sang at a conference on educational gardens, working with schools, volunteers, and institutions—the health authority and the city of Palermo. On May 29, we closed a forum on art therapies at Palermo's Center for Integrated Medicine.
Are there similar projects elsewhere in Italy? We're planning to participate in the "Coralmente Abili" festival in Volterra, held every November for the last four years, where other "sister" choirs also perform.
Laura Nardini, 2009
