May’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Nieve Xiao to bring young musicians together with seniors through Sound of Life.

“Sound of Life,” explains Nieve, “is a group of youth musicians from across Ottawa bringing music and joy into retirement homes. We have over 50 volunteers and are entirely organized and run by our board of seven high school students.”

“Our organization brings about intergenerational learning and interaction,” she continues, “fuelling connection across the community. Music has also been shown to have an immense benefit to dementia and other memory related illnesses that come with old age.”

“I am in grade 11 at Lisgar Collegiate Institute and have volunteered in retirement homes for three years,” she says. “I have had many interactions with people with dementia or forms of it, and have realized the need for adaptive therapies to aid them in their wellbeing. As an avid musician and two-time provincial finalist in piano, I decided to bring two aspects of my life together to found Sound of Life.”

Nieve and the team plan to use the award to build homemade instruments to give to residents so they can play along during performances.