Susanne Mentzer Writes About the Human Voice and Emotions

"On September 9, choruses from New York City, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Boston -- areas forever strongly linked by the tragedies of 9/11 -- will alternate performances throughout the day at Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel and will join together for a communal concert that evening. The human singing voice has the power to release deep emotions. Many know of sounds that give us goosebumps. From the point of view of one who makes sounds, I refer to it as my primal scream therapy. The wonderfulness of singing can be the primal, super-human sound that pours out of one's body. It also be humbling. It is thought that hearing is the last sense to leave us when we die. Over the past year, I sang both my parents into the next world. In the ICU, for my mother, an amateur singer who was particularly proud of me, I think I sang my entire repertoire of hymns and arias, toned down to a low dynamic. At one point she awakened with a smile and said, in the slow, whispered voice of one who could barely breathe, "You were singing!" I am not sure if Dad heard me in his last hours, but I would like to think so. It was a privilege that I would not trade for the world." The entire article is emotionally gripping and anyone who loves the operatic voice will relate to the kind of emotion the mezzo-soprano is talking about. Brava! [Source]