On a recent morning, something extraordinary unfolded inside the atrium of NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens. There were no velvet ropes, no staged spectacle, just a piano, a gathering of people, and the unmistakable hum of connection. This was not a traditional performance. It was a living demonstration of what happens when the arts are fully integrated into the fabric of healthcare.
Representing this powerful partnership, Sing for Hope Co-Founder Monica Yunus, NYC Health and Hospitals VP of Arts in Health Larissa Trinder, and Queens Hospital Chief Experience Officer David Weisman shared key perspectives on-camera with the CBS News crew. The story being captured had been years in the making: the nation’s largest municipal health system was not waiting for change, but rather partnering with Sing for Hope to lead it through creative access and the transformative power of music.
At the center of it all stood Cosmic Garden, a Sing for Hope Piano designed by artist Christopher Spinelli, one of more than 750 artist-designed public pianos produced by Sing for Hope across New York City and around the world. Positioned in the hospital atrium, it did what Sing for Hope Pianos so often do: it invited. A staff member sat down to play. Others gathered. A song began. Voices joined. What unfolded felt magical, even as it was just a typical Wednesday morning at Queens Hospital.
NYC Health + Hospitals serves some of the most diverse and underserved communities in the country. It also faces, head-on, one of the defining challenges of modern healthcare: burnout and moral injury among frontline workers. Rather than treating this as an inevitability, the system has made a strategic, evidence-based commitment to workforce wellbeing. With cornerstone support provided by the Laurie Tisch Illumination Fund, arts-based interventions are now at the center of its commitment to care.
The partnership between Sing for Hope and NYC Health + Hospitals is grounded in a shared belief: that caring for patients begins with caring for people — staff, families, communities. And the arts are essential to that equation. Music, in this context, is not decorative. It is functional. It reduces stress hormones, lowers blood pressure, improves mood, and builds social bonds. It restores something that clinical environments, by necessity, often strain: a sense of shared humanity. Through the Arts in Medicine program, and in partnership with Sing for Hope, these interventions are embedded, sustained, and scaled.
When a Sing for Hope Piano enters a hospital, it changes the room. It creates a space where a nurse, on her way to a demanding shift, might pause and play a few notes. Where a patient, waiting for news, might find a moment of calm. Where a child visiting a family member might approach, curious, and leave having made music for the first time.
In Queens, this transformation is already underway. The CBS segment captured a singalong. It was spontaneous, inclusive, and reflective of the borough’s extraordinary cultural diversity. It involved patients as well as caregivers, uniting everyone in shared harmonies. It is precisely this kind of participatory music-making that research shows has the most powerful effects: reducing isolation, fostering belonging, and re-energizing those who give so much of themselves in service of others. As Larissa Trinder, a respected leader in the burgeoning field of arts in health, noted, 95% of staff report arts experiences as a valuable use of their time, and among those who participate regularly, 100% report greater emotional energy for their patients.
This moment at Queens Hospital is part of a larger, citywide effort. In March 2026, NYC Health + Hospitals announced the placement of six new Sing for Hope Pianos across its system, joining Sing for Hope’s global network of instruments placed in public spaces worldwide.
From Carter to Kings County, from Gotham Health to South Brooklyn Health, the SFH Pianos are already reshaping the experience of care. They do so by inviting creativity into spaces where it is needed most. And through their Music for the Soul concert series, Sing for Hope and NYC Health + Hospitals reached more than 13,000 attendees in 2025 alone, offering free performances across genres and communities. Together, these programs are building something larger than any single initiative: a new vision of healthcare that recognizes joy, creativity, and human connection not as luxuries, but as essential components of wellbeing.
The CBS News segment captured at Queens Hospital was recently broadcast nationally, offering viewers nationwide a window into what is possible when the arts are treated as integral to care. For those inside the atrium that morning, the story did not begin or end with a camera. It lives in the everyday moments that followed: the colleague who returned to the piano later that afternoon, the patient who lingered a little longer, the staff member who felt, even briefly, restored. As Sing for Hope celebrates its 25th anniversary, this partnership with NYC Health + Hospitals stands as a powerful expression of its founding vision: that the arts belong to everyone, and that access to beauty, creativity, and expression can and should exist wherever people are. Including, and especially, in the places where healing begins.
Want to learn more about music as a tool for health? Check out Sing for Hope’s work with the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function.
