Top of their lungs
Choir helps overcome breathing problems
NEW YORK — It was the collapse of the Twin Towers that put a stop to Lawrence Reiss’s singing.
A firefighter, he was buried alive while searching for survivors. Clouds of dust and debris clogged his lungs, leaving him with chronic breathing problems as well as broken bones and cancer.
The Sept. 11 attacks also took away Carol Paukner’s song.
She was the second police officer on the scene, arriving to see half a plane sticking out of the North Tower, the nose buried in the building. The fumes left her with severe asthma, leukemia and nodules on her lungs.
But now they and other survivors of that terrible day have been taught to sing again, with the help of Gareth Malone, Britain’s best-known choirmaster.
The Breathless Choir — 18 people with severe breathing problems, aged between 18 and 80 — was brought together in September.
Over five intensive days, they went from struggling to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to belting out an ensemble piece on stage at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
“Maybe you don’t trust your breath, your muscles,” said Malone gently, when one of the singers tearfully fought to sing a line.
“I thought to myself: This is impossible,” said Reiss. “But (Malone) was amazing — a magician. We all had a song in our hearts and he let it out. (He) saw something in us we never knew was there.”
Little by little, they learned to use the breath they had and to sing.
Malone believes the experience of learning to sing together has been physically beneficial, as well as emotionally uplifting.
“All through history, people have sung and made music because it makes you feel better about yourself,” he said.
“It makes you feel better about your fellow man.
“It comforts, it consoles, it amuses, and it’s so simple; it’s just you and your voice, and your breath.
“I’m no doctor, but I see the impact music has made on these people’s lives. And I see how much good singing has done in their souls and I think in their bodies as well.”
The choir was assembled by Philips, the Dutch electronics company, to highlight the work of its Living Laboratory — a unit set up to create machines to help people with chronic health problems.
For many of the singers, dependent on oxygen machines and facing daily risks of blacking out and having seizures, even conversation was complicated.
Paukner, 51, who was in the NYPD for 12 years and is now medically retired, concedes she was never a great singer, though she used to enjoy belting out tunes in her car.
On the morning of 9/11, she ran into the South Tower to get people out despite objects flying through the air, people jumping to their deaths, and panic on the ground.
Despite warnings to leave, she carried on working and was the only one in that section who survived. Since then she has been campaigning on behalf of all the “first responders” to get access to health care.
Breathing was tough for her and singing impossible, until Malone turned up.
“He was amazing; so patient and I really liked his energy.”