The Schubert Dressing: Healing Through Music, Part 1 of 2

Ms. Oppert was born into a family of doctors and artists, and grew up surrounded by melodies and chords. She has written a book called “The Schubert Dressing” about her experiences of using music to bring comfort to patients with a wide array of conditions ranging from autistic youth to the elderly with dementia to those receiving end-of-life care in hospice.

“And with this path that I have taken, for more than 25 years now, alongside my career as a professional musician, I have been able to bring together these two worlds which are the world of art, of music, and of care, that is medicine, through a new discipline which is for me the right place in my life. It’s something that has lasted throughout my life, and I’ve taken that joy, and and can somehow bring it back to people who are suffering and in pain thanks to the music that would have this role of circulating joy.”

“The cello is the closest instrument to the human voice. And very often the patients I play for would say ‘It sounds like a voice, it sounds like my voice, it sounds like my mother’s voice.’”

“Music, as a way of taking care of, or caring for, was always there. There was something in that sentence that touched me deeply and resonated within me, which was that music can do good, can take care, can envelop and reach a healthy part of a sick person.” “He invited me to his center for people with severe autism, which he had created that same year, in 1997 in Saint Denis, and I worked with him for seven years, with my cello and the autistic persons. I was able to do extraordinary work thanks to Howard Buten’s guidance and trust. Like Benjamin, who was profoundly autistic, who didn’t speak, who was always lying down, who never stood up, and always had his ears plugged. Finally, he straightened up and started to play the piano. He started having real musical conversations with me. And the beautiful thing about it, is that he developed not only the path towards harmony, towards peace in fact, towards gentleness and away from aggression or closure, but also he developed a lot of musical abilities.”