Ealing Pianist Eases the Pain of the Terminally Ill
Miu Shimizu fills the Meadow House Hospice with the sound of music
Pianist Miu Shimizu with bassoonist Joanna Burley
July 8, 2024
Pianist Miu Shimizu has been using her skills as a music therapist to help ease the pain of terminally ill patients at Meadow House Hospice in Ealing.
Miu began volunteering with the hospice last year and the sound of music fills Meadow House once a week when the musician plays a mixture of pop, jazz and rock songs depending on the mood.
One of her favourite pianists in Elton John who himself paid a visit to the Ealing Hospital site to open a new ward in the 1990s.
“We open up patients’ doors so they can hear me play,” says the Tokyo born musician who came to the UK several years ago to study.
“I do take requests and patients and families often ask for a music with a particular mood rather than a specific artist or song title. I’ll often find myself chatting to patients about music and how it makes them feel.”
Miu, who is a member of the Health and Care Professionals Council, will be performing a fundraiser for the hospice at 2.30pm on Friday 12 July with her landlady and fellow musician and bassoonist Joanna Burley, flautist Nanako Nakamura, and singer Sophie.
Joanna added, “We’re quite a musical household and I’m a great believer in music’s ability to positively influence mood and feeling. This is especially important when people are going through tough times.”
Tickets for the performance are available online and cost £10.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
