Meryl Galaid Sokolski sings the final note during her World Voice Day performance.

The Division of Otolaryngology held a concert for staff, patients and visitors in Cabot Atrium for World Voice Day on April 14.

“Voices are really what allow us to make impressions. They’re the first thing we notice when we meet people,” said Thomas Carroll, MD, director of BWH’s Voice Program. The practice provides care and therapies for patients with voice or airway conditions.

On World Voice Day, voice health professionals worldwide hold concerts and other events to celebrate voices and raise awareness of vocal health. Among those who performed at BWH this year was Meryl Galaid Sokolski, an Otolaryngology patient and Boston-area professional singer and actor. Whether she is afflicted with a cold or laryngitis, Galaid Sokolski has found her BWH care team to be accessible, comforting and responsive to her needs as a patient and performer.

“Any actor will tell you that it’s devastating when you’ve got a 28-show run and realize you’re getting sick,” she said. “The team in the Voice Program is always available, and they never minimize any issues that I have. That’s really key as a performer – to have a care team take you seriously and want to help the best they can.”

During the concert, Galaid Sokolski sang Judy Garland’s “The Trolley Song” and Fats Waller’s “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now.”

Also performing that day was the female barbershop quartet Intuition, whose members are Susan Kapur, Dianne Nitzschke, Kelly Winnick and Jennifer Winston, MS, CCC-SLP, a speech language pathologist in the Voice Program. They sang The Chiffons’ “One Fine Day,” followed by Garland’s “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”

The show concluded with a group performance by four BWHers from the Voice Program: Carroll and Winston, along with Jessica Taylor, a program coordinator, and Chandler Thompson, DMA, MS, CCC-SLP, coordinator of Voice Services. Together they sang “Dona Nobis Pacem,” which translates from Latin to “Give Us Peace.”