BY CHARLES CLAWSON

One afternoon last November, jazz pianist Rich Kuhns was performing in Stanford Hospital's atrium with guitar accompaniment. Staff members, patients and their families had gathered on the atrium floor and on the balcony tiers formed by the upper halls. Beyond the atrium the business of the hospital continued with the mechanical buzz of gurneys passing and the clatter of dropped trays.

During a rendition of "The Street Where You Live," a middle-aged man wearing a hospital gown and attached to a rolling IV stand asked a young woman, a chaplain, to dance. As they waltzed, the audience started to clap.

"That was an emotional moment," recalls Marion Silverbear, who coordinates the music program at the hospital. "Fortunately the chaplain knew how to dance."

Concerts have taken place in the hospital since 1992 when Helen Bing, a longtime supporter of the medical center and of the arts at Stanford, offered to fund a music program initiated by Jeanne Kennedy, director of the hospital's Office of Patient and Community Relations.

The Bing Music Series has since evolved into a program of diverse musical styles -- a typical month may feature such offerings as Mozart, mellow jazz standards, French country dances, Latin American songs and a cappella groups with repertoires ranging from 15th-century Basque to contemporary African freedom songs.

Patients, their families and staff speak of the uplifting effects of the concerts, comparing the results to that achieved by clinical medicine, Silverbear said. Although hospitals rarely provide a formalized program, music has been used in therapeutic settings in America for almost 200 years.

Oliver Sachs, in his book Awakenings, described music as "the profoundest non-chemical medication." Recent clinical studies of music support such claims. For instance, the American Cancer Society reported that music helps reduce pain perception, alter blood pressure and respiration, and ameliorate chemotherapy-induced nausea.

As an offshoot of the Music Series a troubadour and a harpist perform in the nursing units of Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, bringing music to patients more intimately. Harpist David Pavlovich has performed in such unlikely places as the admitting area for surgery patients, the infusion lab and the hematology department. Often either he or troubadour Homero Oyarce perform requests, helping patients sleep or recall life outside the hospital. In cases of very ill patients the songs may ease a transition into death, Silverbear said.

Patients, staff and performers describe a kind of healing associated with music that's difficult to capture in a clinical study. For instance, Silverbear said, the harpist played classical selections for a child suffering seizures and brain damage; in the course of a few minutes the child's heart rate went down 35 points.

Similar anecdotes involve Oyarce. Silverbear noted that the troubadour frequently offers the last song heard by a dying patient. Those hospitalized for transplants or cancer treatment often tell Oyarce they have less pain when he sings.

Silverbear said the music program is popular with staff and patients alike and is part of a comprehensive model for the healing arts. SR

Former patient sings happy tune

When Debbie Sugarman returns to Stanford Hospital on Friday, she'll have something to sing about.

Sugarman will sing at 12:30 p.m. Friday in the hospital atrium. As part of her concert, she'll talk briefly about her experience as a Stanford patient eight years ago when a tumor was removed from her brain.

As a teenager, Sugarman's life was dominated by an undiagnosed condition that caused worsening seizures and speech failure. "At times it was hard for me to speak, and I felt out of control from seizures that occurred without warning, where I'd fall and lose consciousness," she recalled.

In 1993 when Sugarman was 18, advances in imaging technology allowed physicians at Stanford to locate a slow-growing tumor in the left temporal region of her brain. "The findings scared me, surprised me and relieved me at the same time," she said.

After two successful surgeries the tumor was removed and her life began to change dramatically. "Adapting to the transformation took a while. It was like coming to a different country."

Now Sugarman is a massage therapist, motivational speaker and singer. As a volunteer for the National Brain Tumor Foundation she visits patients and offers counseling to those confronting similar conditions. " I feel I have special insight into how an illness can make you stronger," she said. "It's time for me to spread the light of hope to as many others as possible"