Our Story
Music In Hospices stemmed from a deeply personal moment between our founder, Joseph Cavalli-Price, and his mother in December 2019 as she was end-of-life in a local Hospice.
I sat with Mum in a tiny hospice called Ty Olwen in Swansea, for two months. Medically, the care was outstanding: you meet the most compassionate people in the darkest times. However my Mum was an incredibly dynamic person; brimming with humour and life and deeply passionate about the arts, culture and music. I felt that this dynamism: socially, psychologically and spiritually was missing. Mum was nonverbal, so for two months, I just sat by her bedside talking to her and sharing the space with her. Increasingly I felt helpless and longed for a better way to communicate.
On a walk around the Hospice: I discovered a piano, tucked away and covered with blankets. I lifted the lid and started to play: it brought instant emotional relief. It was your typical honky-tonk piano, out-of-tune with missing keys, but It sparked an idea. After asking a staff member if I could play for Mum, I wheeled the piano onto the ward, placed it alongside her bed and started to play; songs like ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ ‘We'll Gather Lilacs’ and ‘Moon River’. It was a deeply personal moment and in truth, meant solely for Mum and me but it had this insane ripple effect. The staff commented on how wonderful it was to hear music on the ward and it didn’t just connect me with my family: the patient opposite Mum expressed how it was the first time they felt relaxed in months and how it connected them with their family too, the first positive memory amidst many dark months. For months afterwards, the story of the ‘boy who played piano for his Mum’ rippled through my small South Wales community.
During my first year at the Academy, an email pinged into my inbox from Julian West, the head of the Royal Academy of Music’s Open Academy: regarding the Jacob Barnes Award for Collaborative Piano. The prize is awarded each year to a collaborative pianist to performs in settings where people ordinarily wouldn’t get the opportunity to hear music. It was founded by Jonathan and Cherry in memory of their son Jacob, a RAM alumni and wonderful pianist and chamber musician who tragically died aged 21, from leukaemia. Truly moved by Jonathan and Cherry’s story: how they transformed this heartbreaking, sudden loss into a catalyst for good, it lit a spark. I recalled my experience with Mum; submitted a proposal, titled ‘Music in Hospices’ and connected immediately with Jonathan and Cherry over our shared experiences of palliative care. They generously awarded me the bursary and Music in Hospices came to fruition.
In 2024, we have been named, out of 500 applicants, one of the Top 20 Social Enterprises 2024 by the Deutsche Bank Award for Creative Entrepreneurship.
We completed our pilot in Greenwich and Bexley Hospice earlier this year with such success that we were immediately awarded further funding to continue our work in the.
We’ve launched two new partnerships with Orchestras for All and Norman's Music: two inspiring, sustainable organisations that provide us with secondhand, refurbished musical instruments which we then donate to children and young adults of palliative care patients.
