3 days Ago
A composer who was inspired by the sounds of her cancer treatment has created music to soothe other patients. Helen Anahita Wilson, 43, from Brighton, found inspiration in the whirring and buzzing of chemotherapy machines and the medicinal plants used in her treatment. She recorded the biodata from these plants and transformed it into sound, creating music from the rhythms and patterns she discovered.
Synaesthetic musician blends nature and medicine into calming compositions (Image: Cancer Research UK) Her award-winning work is now used to help other hospital patients undergoing cancer treatment. Ms Wilson said: "Hospitals can be noisy places, as can the machinery used there. "I found my time in treatment quite an extreme sonic experience.
"So I began making music specifically for people having treatment in hospital to improve the auditory experience and help connect them back to nature in what feels like a very unnatural space." Survivor credits research and music in call to support cancer breakthroughs (Image: James Joyce) Ms Wilson, who was diagnosed with HER2+ breast cancer in 2019, was given a cocktail of drugs including three that Cancer Research UK helped develop. She said: "In the early days of Covid, I sat in the Sussex Cancer Centre for nine or 10 hours at a time, hooked up to this giant appendage, listening to the sounds around me.
"It was incredibly noisy." After her treatment, Ms Wilson bought six chemotherapy machines from eBay and turned them into speakers. She used these to create sound installations and reimaginings of hospital radio broadcast through hospital machinery.
(Image: James Joyce) She also used her own medical data in the rhythms of the music she created. Ms Wilson, who has synaesthesia, said: "I can feel songs in different parts of my body; I can hear phrases and different pitches. "Eventually I decided I wanted to create something purposeful out of my experience and take away some of the trauma for patients.
" Her experience led her to pivot her PhD from studies in South Indian classical music to creating music that explored the experience of cancer and its treatment. She developed unique techniques for making music from medicinal plants. She said: "If I’d known some of what was in those frightening-looking toxic bags delivering my chemotherapy was plant-derived, I would have found some comfort in that.
" Ms Wilson started collecting data and created a piece of music specifically for people undergoing cancer treatment in hospital called Linea Naturalis (We are all bioelectrical beings). "The feedback from patients has been amazing – I’ve had lovely messages from people all over the world from Kuwait to Tokyo to California," she said. Ms Wilson is now backing a call for people to help beat cancer for generations to come by leaving a gift to Cancer Research UK in their will.
She said: "I am a living legacy of the work of Cancer Research UK, whose trials and developments are part of the reason I’m still here. "Research into improved treatments has given me the greatest gift – more time. "I’ve been able to experience so many important milestones that I thought I might never reach.
"But none of this would have been possible without the dedication of researchers who are relentlessly striving to make new discoveries and cancer breakthroughs. "They need our support to help create the life-saving treatments of tomorrow." Lynn Daly, Cancer Research UK spokesperson for the South East, said: "We’re grateful to Helen for helping to raise awareness.
"Our scientists have played a role in around half of the world’s essential cancer drugs, led the development of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and paved the way for targeted treatments. "This all adds up to more precious moments for people affected by cancer and their loved ones. "But we must go further and faster.
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