Singing Their Way Through Retirement

Singing Their Way Through Retirement
The nonprofit Encore Creativity for Older Adults chorale program is the largest in the country for people over 55, with more than 1,100 singers
and 21 choral groups in the Washington metro area and more than 700 singers in five other states (two new programs will open in New York in March).
“There’s a sense of reliance.”
And, he added, “There’s always an element of the spiritual side, in the sense that we’re living out of our own selves into a creative art.”
“I’ve always been a bit of a ham and a bit of a show-off,” said Ms. Diamond, a former
Alzheimer’s Association employee who came to Washington from Britain in 1979.
I didn’t have that opportunity professionally, but I’ve had it here.”
Even after he stopped driving, he maintained a full life at Goodwin House apart from the Encore rehearsals there: as a bingo
caller, as a fund-raiser for holiday gifts for the staff, as a founder of a group that gathers to read plays together.
“People increase the range of their voices, start being able to hit high notes.”
Mr. Hoppin sings with former staff members of the Naval Academy
and NASA, and with several widows who tell him that singing has helped them recover from loss.
Its founder and director, Jeanne Kelly, a former classical singer, led a three-year study
conducted by George Washington University that observed 150 singers older than 55.