Artist in Residence Program
HAND Artists in Residence will perform weekly at patient bedsides and in waiting areas on a regular basis.
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Leslie Alperin - Cello Duke North Lobby, 2nd floor ICU Leslie Alperin graduated from the University of Michigan as a teacher and musician. She spent 8 years in Alaska conducting the North Star Strings Orchestra, performing with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and teaching strings in the Fairbanks public schools. Ms Alperin now maintains a private cello studio in Chapel Hill, directs the Piedmont Youth Orchestra, and performs with ensembles throughout the Triangle. In addition to her studies at Michigan, UC Berkeley, and UNC, she has extensive Suzuki, Orff, and Early Childhood Music certification. Leslie enjoys the contact she makes with the community through her playing at Duke Hospital; music touches people deeply, and there is heartfelt response. |
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Steve Fishman - Guitar Morris Clinic Steve Fishman is a visual artist, guitar player, and art teacher. He received his MFA in printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1989. Fishman spent many years performing as a one man band in Richmond; he performed in Richmond's legendary "Ululating Mummies" and currently plays in a local vaudavelian swing quartet called Skeedaddle. “The Hospital work I do is profoundly humbling, fulfilling, and often challenging,” says Fishman. For information on Skeedaddle visit http://www.myspace.com/skeedaddle1.
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Alan Mele - Violin Oncology, ABMT Alan Mele has been a familiar face on Wednesdays with Oncology and ABMT patients and staff. Although he specializes in classical violin, he has also delighted Duke patients, staff, and their families with bluegrass, spirituals, and American Standards. |
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Helen Wolfson - Hammered Dulcimer ABMT, ED, North Lobby, Heart ICU Helen Wolfson began playing the hammered dulcimer in 1993. Although she had no intention of doing anything but learning for fun, a few years later she began performing in public. Since the late 1990's, Wolfson has played at weddings, parties, receptions, and other similar venues. In 2002, she was talking with another parent at her son's school who happened to mention that she played music at bedsides for hospital and hospice patients. As soon as she heard the idea, she knew it was what she wanted to be doing with the dulcimer. Since completing a course of study with Music for Healing and Transition Program and became a Certified Music Practitioner, she has played in hospitals, nursing homes, and private homes. Wolfson says, “I love working at the hospital because it is evident how much the staff, the patients, and their families enjoy the relaxation and stress relief that live therapeutic music can provide. Playing in the hospital always makes a difference to someone. It may be a woman who says that she's never been so relaxed in her life; it may be a chemo patient whose technician couldn't successfully insert the needle until I began playing music; or it may be a nurse who tells me that the soothing music in the background made a difficult conversation easier. Sometimes it is simply someone who didn't even know that the hammered dulcimer existed and is being enchanted by its ethereal sound for the first time. Whatever the circumstances, a day that I play in the hospital is a day that I made the world a little better for someone.” |
