When the workday ends, AdventHealth physicians, nurses, and team members don't just set aside their scrubs, stethoscopes, and laptops – they pick up their violins, trumpets, and oboes.
Since 2021, the AdventHealth Orchestra started during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to bring together team members to offer healing through music, has used the healing power of sound to touch thousands of people at live concerts, conferences, and events in the Greater Orlando, United States area.
In an exciting new chapter of its journey, the orchestra was recently featured on AdventHealth’s all-original debut album, “Imagine Wholeness.” The album also features a collaboration with ten-time Grammy-winning acapella group Take 6 on the standout track “Light the Way.”
“The album creates a place to relax and let the words paint a picture of what wholeness could mean for you,” said Richard Hickam, AdventHealth director of music and the arts, of the new album. “Biblical themes in the Psalms are beautiful because they often resonate across different faith traditions, which I find to be the unifying factor.”
A former music teacher, conductor, and AdventHealth Orchestra founder, Hickam now works in the AdventHealth mission and ministry department, where he integrates music and the arts with hospital functions. After the all-string orchestra’s first performance in 2022, it grew to include woodwinds, brass, and percussion musicians to form the hospital’s first full orchestra the following year.
“Imagine Wholeness” is an extension of the organization’s brand promise to help people feel whole. The collection combines sweeping string arrangements and subtle piano notes to evoke a sense of peace and hope, where genres range from pop to bossa nova.
Hickam wrote the songs in collaboration with Rich Moats, director of integrative and creative arts therapies at AdventHealth in Central Florida, and Chad Carlson, a multi-Grammy Award winner and former recording artist for Taylor Swift. Vocals from a variety of team members across the organization are featured.
Since its release, the album has reached listeners worldwide, from Berlin, Germany to São Paulo, Brazil, and the number of streams continues to grow. On February 17, 2025, the AdventHealth Orchestra will travel to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., to participate in a President’s Day music clinic.
Hickam credits AdventHealth’s leadership for the vision that empowered his department to push the boundaries of art in medicine, and he looks forward to continuing to break new ground.
“For wholeness to be intact for us as humans, we need to include the arts,” said Hickam. “When we engage in that, particularly through the lens of faith, unique things happen.”
The original article was published on the AdventHealth website.
