EXPLORING YOUR VOICE has the power to open up new ways of understanding its capabilities, which can help people move beyond long-held habits or limitations.

As a voice lecturer and director of the Good Vibrations choir, whose members’ voice boxes were removed as a result of Head and Neck Cancer, I’ve witnessed this firsthand.

One of our members Noel, said, “The choir is an opportunity to show the world that we can still have a voice and that cancer can be beaten”.

Good Vibrations is Ireland’s first laryngectomy choir. Laryngectomy is the surgical removal of the larynx (voice box), usually performed in patients with advanced stages of throat cancer. The impact of losing the voice can be devastating to a person’s identity, mental health, family and work life, with many reporting a need to overcome depression and social isolation.

The choir grew from a simple but powerful idea: singing could offer something meaningful to people living with the profound changes to voice and identity following total laryngectomy.

Inspired by the trailblazing work of Dr Thomas Moors and the “Shout At Cancer” choir in the UK, and sparked by a conversation during an educational visit to a surgical voice restoration clinic at the South Infirmary – Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), Good Vibrations was created.

With the help of the Speech and Language Therapy Team at the SIVUH, our first rehearsal took place in........

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