In Brain Beats, One of Rivers’ Newest Clubs, Students Connect with Memory Patients Through Music

The connection for Ella is personal: Her grandmother has Alzheimer’s. She and her brother co-founded a similar club while attending Needham High together, and when she came to Rivers, Ella was determined to bring the same outreach opportunity to the Rivers community. 

Through visiting her grandmother’s community, Avita in Needham, and another community, Newbridge in Dedham, Ella and the students of Brain Beats are making meaningful connections with the residents through their favorite music. The team has a playlist of 50s and 60s music that brings back memories for the community. Some favorites include “YMCA” (“Everyone gets up and dances for that one!”) and “Calendar Girl” by Neil Sedaka, and has expanded to include “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond and songs by Billy Joel.

Starting out, the Rivers students making visits would come equipped with hand-held instruments like tambourines and maracas to play along with the playlists. But recently, there has been a component of live music as well, with musicians from the Conservatory Program at Rivers bringing their instruments. Seniors Arianna Martinez Cavero ’24, violin, and Jack Benson ’24, trumpet, have come on past visits to play some arrangements of popular tunes for the communities. After each visit, the group gets together to talk about what went well, suggest new songs for the playlist, and plan future visits.

Getting the club approved by Rivers was a very supportive process, said Ella, who started the process of proposing the club last year. “I talked through the idea with my advisor, [Elisa Goldsmith P’18, 24], who I thought would be a good advisor for the club, and she absolutely loved it,” she said. From there, she talked to Upper School Assistant Dean of Students Susanna Donahue P’03 ’06 and Upper School Dean of Students Will Mills and wrote up a description of the club. Once the club was approved, Ella presented a speech at the club fair in the fall and recruited other students to join. 

When asked to describe a powerful moment from one of the visits, Ella recounted that, a few times at Avita, she had observed a particular man who was nonverbal but became very animated when he heard certain songs played. “He started waving his arms and smiling. It made him so happy,” Ella recalled.

The club is all about energy, smiling, keeping residents up and dancing, and the intergenerational exchange that takes place between the residents and the students. There is reward aplenty on both sides: As the saying goes, smiling is contagious, and the Brain Beats volunteers are spreading theirs to an appreciative community.