The Elder Care Concert Series program began in 2002, as a partnership with Sierra Arts and Healing Healthcare Systems, to ease any isolation experienced by the residents of nursing facilities and to present a forum for community among them. Healing Healthcare Systems is a Reno-based company that develops media productions — such as in-house video/audio programming and ambient music designed to be directly supportive of the healing process in institutionalized settings. The program roots stem from Healing Healthcare’s president, Susan Mazer and her husband Dallas Smith’s, experience performing for seniors in an assisted living facility where Smith’s parents lived. After their first performance, they could clearly see how the music positively affected those who live in such facilities feel about themselves and their situation, “making those musical moments ones in which the sense of well-being transcends suffering.”

In 2002, Healing Healthcare Systems provided a generous donation of $5,000, which was matched by the City of Reno’s Arts and Culture Commission. Tommy Sands, an Irish musician who performs internationally, provided the first ECCS performance for Alzheimer’s residents at the Clare Bridge and Alterra Wynwood facility. Jill Berryman, former SAF Executive Director, was an audience member for that first concert and says, “It was amazing to witness the transformation of the residents in one hour’s time. It was like watching time-lapse photography of a rose blooming, starting out with the tightest bud, people not socializing or interacting at all, to the full bloom when suddenly residents moved to the first row, they began singing along, they started talking to each other and having eye contact with Tommy and the staff. I cry sometimes when I think about what took place and the power the arts have to make it happen.”

In the magazine, Nursing Homes Long Term Care Management, Susan Mazer detailed the program, and spoke to the benefits of the Elder Care Concert Series performances as recurring events, around which to build this sense of ‘ritual. ‘ “Presenting concerts in nursing homes or hospitals is not a new idea. However, an eldercare concert, whose specific intention is to enrich the facility’s culture and enhance residents’ quality of life, has far more comprehensive impact than a one-time or occasional event.” She has also written that, “After returning to the facilities to perform several times, the relationships between the musicians and their audiences develop into a partnership that benefits everyone- staff, residents and musicians.”