Hitting the right note

We often think of Emergency Department workers as A-type personalities who like canyoning, skydiving and mountain climbing on the weekends, but having to constantly think on their feet in stressful situations makes many of them an inherently creative tribe too.

Twelve musically gifted SESLHD members for example have become leading lights in a highly successful local choir known as the ED Musos.

Two of the videos have already become popular; their rendition of Crowded House’s Better Be Home Soon has already had more than 34,000 views.

Recently two of the singers from the Prince of Wales Emergency Department, Dr Ayanthi Perera and Dr Laura Brown were asked to sing live at the NSW Australian of the Year Award.

Laura used to sing with The River Dancers. Another choir member is a backup singer for Adele.

“I haven’t sung for years,” she said. “It felt so good. I think it made us all realise you could make something good out of a bad situation.”

The choir began simply enough during the first lockdown in 2020  after Dr Clare Skinner, an emergency physician at Hornsby Hospital, thought it might boost the morale of exhausted health workers to sing virtually together.

Clare posted a piano recording on Facebook, thinking she would only get a handful of responses. Within days, she had been inundated with offers to perform.

“I had no idea it would get this big,” says Dr Skinner.

A year later, the ED Musos, as the choir is called, has swelled to more than 400 members, 12 of whom are from our Local Health District.

The home-made feel is part of the videos charm; in the background you can see pets, children, and babies.

As choir member nurse Wayne Varndell puts it, “It’s really brought us together as a group. When we met up face to face for the first time, we could say things like, ‘Oh you’re the person wearing the reindeer antlers.”

The choir are planning their first live concert soon.

ED Muso members