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Chicago Choir Program Brings Joy and Connection to Older Adults Through Music
A "Sounds Good" choir for elderly people performs at a Dec. 8, 2025, holiday concert at First United Methodist Church of Arlington Heights in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Photo: Anne Schankin
The year 2026 marks 10 years since the Rev. Sandy Siegel Miller, deacon at the Church of the Holy Nativity in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, and her husband, Jonathan Miller, founded Sounds Good! Choir for Chicago-area adults 55 and older. Now the program has nine choral ensembles throughout Chicago and its suburbs, including one choir for singers with early-stage memory loss and their caregivers.
"The Episcopal Church has a very clear message that you are welcome, whoever you are, and that message applies to Sounds Good! Choir," Sandy Miller told ENS. "Our doors are wide open to any older adult who thinks they can benefit from this program."
The program offers two types of choral ensembles - "Sounds Good" for elderly people with normal cognitive functions, and "Good Memories" for people with dementia and their caregivers. Each ensemble averages 45-60 singers, though two ensembles have closer to 100 members.
The Millers were inspired to launch Sounds Good! Choir after Jonathan Miller received a surprising request. In 2011, he published "Jingle Bells Hallelujah," a mashup of "Jingle Bells" and Handel's "Messiah" that he arranged for a Chicago a cappella ensemble. Later, someone unexpectedly ordered 550 copies of the score.
"I was like, 'Who are you?' That was an unusually large order," Miller told our website.
That person was Jeanne Kelly, founder and executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Encore Creativity for Older Adults, the United States' largest choral arts organization for adults 55 and older.
After Kelly's order was filled, she explained the many physical and mental health benefits older adults gain from singing in a choir. For example, experts have shown it may improve sleep, reduce stress and anxiety, combat loneliness and decrease depression. It may even help improve lung function. This conversation and further research inspired the Millers to form a similar program in the Chicago area. They founded Sounds Good! Choir in 2016, when Sandy Miller was still in diaconate formation.
Jonathan Miller conducts the "Good Memories" choir at a Dec. 9, 2025, holiday concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, Illinois. The choir is a musical ensemble for elderly people with memory impairment and their caregivers. Photo: Anne Schankin
No prior musical experience is necessary to join the Sounds Good! Choir program. Participants pay a fee to enroll in each choral "season," which lasts 15 weeks. The fees help pay for the professional musicians who conduct and play piano accompaniment.
During the 15 weeks, the singers learn choral techniques, rehearse selected repertoire and learn performance etiquette. Each season concludes with a free public concert.
People with dementia and their caregivers may especially benefit from singing in a choir because studies show singing familiar songs can help recall memories. The weekly activity also helps them socialize with others who share similar circumstances in a stigma-free environment.
The Millers both lead "Good Memories," basing its curriculum on an open-source toolkit from Giving Voice, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based nonprofit that promotes choir programs for people with dementia. The "Good Memories'" repertoire is mostly the same as "Sounds Good," but Jonathan Miller slightly rearranges the choral parts to make performing them easier for the singers with dementia.
"Every week is like a baby miracle," Jonathan Miller said. "Often, when people with dementia walk into rehearsal, they're not engaging socially that much, and they struggle to get there. But by the time we take a snack break 30, 45 minutes in, and certainly by the end of rehearsal, something in their brain wakes up. They are usually full-on talking, smiling, laughing and much more socially engaged and more likely to look you in the eye. It's absolutely extraordinary."
Each "Good Memories" rehearsal also starts and ends with "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning' from the Broadway musical "Oklahoma!" and "Happy Trails" by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The songs also are performed in every "Good Memories" concert.
"We anchor each rehearsal with those songs to help keep the program familiar for our musicians," Jonathan Miller said.
Since "Good Memories" was formed in 2018, many singers from a "Sounds Good" ensemble have volunteered to assist during a "Good Memories" rehearsal. Some singers who initially enrolled in "Sounds Good" have later transferred to "Good Memories" after being diagnosed with early-stage dementia.
The Millers are working with a community consultant to add a new, culturally sensitive "Good Memories" choir on Chicago's South Side, which is home to several historically Black and Latino neighborhoods.
"We're excited to learn how we can bring this program in a way that the community really wants so that we can optimally be of service," Jonathan Miller said.
"We want to be respectful and meet the stated needs of the communities, rather than foist something upon them," Sandy Miller said. "Once we learn if and how to do that, we hope to start rehearsals in the fall season."
Given a background in clinical psychology, Sandy Miller never expected she'd lead a choir. Now, however, she said, the work is her way of engaging in community organizing and addressing an "underserved" need in the Chicago area.
"I genuinely feel that as a deacon, as a person, this work is the clearest thing that I've ever experienced as a calling from God," Sandy Miller said. "It's been incredibly gratifying and challenging and just amazing work."
