Entrancing a cappella harmonies rang out over the harbor in the soft sunshine of a September evening.
Four members of the Haines Threshold Singers met on the lawn next to the Presbyterian Church Monday to practice singing soothing songs like “Rest Easy,” “So Many Angels” and “Hollow Bamboo.”
The threshold singers are a group of mostly women who sing at the bedside or in the home of people who are “at the thresholds of life,” which includes those who are sick, dying, grieving, bereaved or in need of comfort.
Haines resident Ellen Larson started the group here in April after she was a member of a threshold choir in Flagstaff, Ariz., for three years.
She described how she sang at the bedside of a woman whose face was scrunched up and uncomfortable. After the threshold choir began to sing, the woman’s face completely relaxed as she took in the music. “That’s what hooked me on this,” Larson said.
The Threshold Choir is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization with more than 150 chapters in the United States and United Kingdom. The Haines singers are waiting for final approval to be recognized as an official chapter.
An affiliation with the national organization will allow the local group to have access to a larger repertoire of music online. Many threshold singers across the country will write their own songs and share them to the Threshold Choir website for use by other chapters. Larson will also be able to speak to a coach who can share helpful advice and tips.
“We’re still learning the repertoire and figuring out how to honor the threshold choir mission, but adapt to our community’s needs,” Larson said.
Although threshold singers in the Lower 48 mostly sing to people who are dying, Larson said the scope of their services in Haines will be more broad because of the small community and no hospital in town.
When requested, threshold singers will sing in groups of two to four people for about 20 minutes free of charge. The singers purposely don’t use sheet music and instead memorize the tunes to take the focus off of the singers and put it onto the individual.
“We are not a performing group, the focus is not on us,” Larson said.
She said a lot of the group’s song selection during a session unfolds intuitively, and a family member or caregiver may suggest a song. The threshold choir normally does not sing religious songs unless they are requested, but mostly sing uplifting and comforting songs or lullabies.
The Haines Threshold Singers have between three to eight women at their practices every two weeks. Most members come to practices until they learn the words and melodies to the songs. Then they are put on a list and contacted when someone requests the choir.
Larson originally spread the word about the threshold singers within Nancy Nash’s women’s choir. She said she wanted the group to slowly build through the summer because it takes time to establish and understand the group’s purpose to fully embrace it.
“We want members to really be called to do this work,” Larson said. “They have to emotionally be in a place where they can openheartedly give.” She added that prospective members should know that they can fully be there for someone else in a trying time.
Larson said she hopes to do an exercise with the members where each woman will lay in the middle of the group while the others sing “to understand what it’s like to receive a song.”
Threshold singer Liz Morantz said being home when her mother died inspired her to go into hospice care. She’s been with Hospice of Haines for 17 years. She said she also loves to sing, and has even played a guitar and sang at someone’s bedside in the past. She found that joining the threshold singers was a way to marry those interests.
So far the Haines Threshold Singers have sung by the bedside of one person several times. But Larson said they hope to sing more once people realize the group’s mission and availability.
Anyone interested in becoming a threshold singer can contact Larson at [email protected].