Flying Free: Music without Limits

By Jessica Roemischer

This video is taken from a performance called, "Flying Free: Music without Limits." It features improvised and semi-improvised piano duets with the women I teach at Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA. Riverbrook is home to twenty-three women. Under the direction of Joan Burkhard, a committed staff is creating the optimum conditions for women with developmental disabilities to be supported in every dimension of life. This is the environment I entered as a piano teacher in Fall, 2007. In my work with the women, I became disarmed by the result. As you’ll see, these women confirm that beauty arises from the deepest level of being, unfettered by any limitation. They demonstrate why music is, arguably, our most powerful and universal means of human expression and is present in us all!