FARRAGUT

Dad's tears led to healing career in music therapy and national honor

Carol Z. Shane

Shopper correspondent

It all started with her dad’s tears.

In the late 1990s, Eunsoon Lee-Corliss’s father suffered a devastating stroke. His power to communicate was completely gone and he had to use a wheelchair. Over the next few years, little changed.

Eunsoon Lee-Corliss’ sunny nature, musical flexibility and mastery of her instrument make her an award-winning music therapist.

Lee-Corliss, assistant principal violist with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 1985, says, “I would carry my viola in to him and play but I wasn’t quite sure how much he understood.” One day, as part of the KSO’s Christmas season outreach program to the community, her string quartet was assigned to play at his NHC facility. “My mother wheeled him out to the hall where other residents were gathered for the concert. As we played, his frozen face muscles started to wiggle and his mouth twisted, working hard to liberate tears that had been in him for such a long time. And then they just flowed down his face.

Eunsoon Lee-Corliss with her father, Hee Lee, before his illness.

“It was the biggest change since his stroke three years before. And that made me think, ‘I need to play for people. This is a wonderful thing that I could do.’”

Lee-Corliss’ father died in 2002. In 2003, the KSO welcomed Lucas Richman as its new music director and conductor, and in 2004, Maestro Richman launched the Music & Wellness program, which at first consisted of private, one-on-one bedside playing for individual hospital patients. Lee-Corliss, on board from the beginning, helped to pilot the program and became a member of the Music & Wellness string quartet in 2009. Through grant funding, KSO musicians were eventually offered a chance to train as music therapists under the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP.)

As a Certified Music Practitioner, Eunsoon Lee-Corliss uses music to calm infants in the NICU. “Three or four minutes into it, their heartbeats get slower and most of them just go to sleep,” she says. “It’s a really good feeling to know you helped with that.”

In August of 2015, Lee-Corliss completed more than 80 hours of coursework and 45 hours of practicum work, individually playing in four local assisted living facilities and at the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU,) chemotherapy bays, and cardiovascular and pulmonary inpatient units, earning her degree as a Certified Music Practitioner (CMP.) A mother of three herself, she is especially passionate about sharing the benefits of therapeutic music with newborn infants.

Now she is one of one of just five orchestral musicians from across the United States to receive a Ford Musician Award for Excellence in Community Service from the League of American Orchestras. The award, made possible by the Ford Motor Company Fund, will be presented to Lee-Corliss this week at the League’s 72nd National Conference in Detroit. She will also discuss her work at an elective session for conference delegates.

“It is an honor to be selected as one of the recipients,” she says. “The KSO Music & Wellness program has a wonderful team working together. This award is not just for myself but for all of us who are involved.”

Lee-Corliss and her husband, Scott, enjoy road trip adventures, and right now they’re exploring the northeastern U.S., part of a long-planned summer trip. How did news of the award affect that? “Scott and I had to cut the last leg out – Quebec!” she laughs. “Detour to Detroit!”