Sensory Friendly Solutions
Welcome to the Sensory Friendly Solutions Podcast!
Dive into our ever-growing series of 27 episodes that explore the fascinating world of your senses, tackling sensory sensitivity, sensory overload, and practical sensory-friendly solutions for daily life. Each episode is a blend of expert insights, personal stories, and actionable advice, designed to inspire and empower.
What sets us apart? Our episodes feature international luminaries like occupational therapist and researcher Dr. Winnie Dunn, best-selling author Carol Stock Kranowitz, and the world-renowned autism advocate Dr. Temple Grandin. We also amplify the voices of parents, individuals with lived sensory experiences, and innovators who’ve created sensory-friendly solutions that truly work.
But there’s more—our audio conference content takes a deep dive into specialized topics, including Sensory Friendly Dentistry and Sensory Friendly Travel, offering fresh perspectives on areas that impact everyday life.
At the helm of the podcast is Christel Seeberger, Founder and CEO of Sensory Friendly Solutions. With a 30-year career as an occupational therapist and her own lived experience of sensory sensitivity and overload due to adult-onset hearing loss, Christel brings unique insights and a passionate drive to make the world more sensory-friendly for all.
Join us for enlightening discussions, transformative ideas, and real-world solutions. Let’s work together to make life more sensory-friendly—because small changes create big differences!
Sensory Friendly Solutions
Music and concerts for all with Sarah Nematallah, Xenia Concerts.
In this episode of the 55+ Travelers: Arriving & Thriving Audio Conference, hosted by Sensory Friendly Solutions, founder & CEO Christel Seeberger and guest hosts Sophie Yang, and Christopher Basmadjian, Occupational Therapy Students, we will learn from Sarah Nematallah, Xenia Concerts, on how to create musical performances and concerts an experience for everyone to enjoy.
Hear Sarah Nematallah share how Xenia Concerts offers high-quality music and arts performances in an environment that welcomes everyone. Sarah walks you through the simple steps that make the sensory experience a match for the audience.
Episode Guide:
0:20 Welcome to guest Sarah Nemahtallah!
0:45 Xenia Concerts and how it became what it is today
7:01The importance of feedback
8:10 Sarah's Role as Executive Director of Xenia Concerts
10:57 Resources that Xenia Concerts uses
12:40 sound.colLab
14:05 Accessibility Limitations of 55+ population
16:13 Creating a Quiet Space
16:50 Making sure the audiences voices are heard
18:31 Doing a Walkthrough in Advanced
23:05 Accommodating Seniors and Hearing Loss
24:58 Preparing the Audience
27:03 Welcoming all audiences
28:00 The Impact of COVID-19
31:37Creating a Sensory-Friendly Livestream
33:58 In-person performances & COVID-19 Measures
35:04 Always Room for Improvement
36:40 The future vision of Xenia Concerts & Acessibility
40:34 Sarah's key advice in making music and performances more accessible to older adults
41:50 Thank you, Sarah Nematallah!
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Christopher Basmadjian: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 55+ Travelers: Arriving and Thriving audio-conference, brought to you by Sensory Friendly Solutions. I’m your host Christopher Basmadjian. In this episode you will also hear the voices of co-hosts Sophie Yang, my fellow occupational therapy student, as well as Sensory Friendly Solutions founder and CEO Christel Seeberger. Our guest in this episode is Sarah Nematallah, co-founder of Xenia Concerts. She will share the mission of Xenia Concerts to offer high quality music and arts performances and programs that are accessible to everyone. Sarah will share her lessons learned in making older audiences welcome. Sarah, could you introduce yourself?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:00:35] Hi, my name is Sarah Nematallah and I am the current executive and artistic director of Xenia Concerts and also its co-founder.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:00:44] So Sarah, could you tell us about where Xenia concerts began and your process of creating it since you’re a co-founder.
Sarah Nematallah: [00:00:53] Absolutely. My background is actually in the arts. I used to be, in a former life, a concert violinist, and my specialty was classical music. And I played all over the world and in some very beautiful concert venues. And I also spent a lot of my performing career playing in other venues like hospitals or schools or jails. And I deeply believed and continue to believe that, you know, music is beautiful and it's good for people. And people love music and want to have music in their lives. And so that sort of drove me to try and, you know, make my music available wherever possible. And in 2013, I was playing a concert in California and a friend of mine let me know beforehand that: “oh, this concert is actually going to be open to families who have family members on the spectrum. And are you OK with that?” And I said, of course, absolutely. And I played the concert and it was really a beautiful experience because as you may or may not know, because I was trained in classical music, a lot of my concerts involve these sort of unspoken rules that like, you know, you can't make too much noise, like you can't open that candy wrapper because it's going to disturb the person beside you listening to the music. And you can't move around too much, can't get up out of your seat. And the concerts can be really long a lot of the time. And yeah. And so it was really wonderful to be in a concert where people were just free to enjoy the music however they wanted. And after the concert, one of the family members came up to me and told me that they love classical music, that their daughter loves classical music, but they just don't feel comfortable to attend a lot of concerts open to the public because of these unspoken rules, because of, you know, this background of how you're supposed to behave at these concerts. And she actually told me that there was one occasion where she took her daughter to the symphony and her daughter got so excited and started cheering and clapping during the concert and was asked to leave as a result of that. And I thought that was just completely tragic and awful. And so I... I took this wonderful conversation and this experience back with me to Toronto, where Xenia is based. And I set out with the other founders of the organization to figure out if there was a way to create a sensory friendly concert series that would be really welcoming to absolutely everyone. And actually, the name Xenia, we took it from a Greek word that actually means to welcome, to welcome strangers from afar and stuff like that. So the concept of welcoming, being as welcoming as possible is like very much... very important to the organization. And the way we went about developing the series, we didn't just jump into it, you know, overconfident and think that we knew everything, we... we took the time to really educate ourselves and to learn. So we connected with, you know, Toronto community members that, you know, were on the spectrum or had family members on the spectrum. We also engaged with organizations that service some of those communities like Autism Ontario and Professionals at SickKids Autism Research Unit. And we spent a good year really consulting and, you know, getting feedback on some of our ideas from, you know, stakeholders, from... from the community. And we took all that knowledge and used it to develop the series, which we designed to be open to the public. And our first try on it was in 2015 with three concerts that were open to the public, but, and that were advertised to be open to the public, but that... were, you know, we put special effort into marketing the concerts to our target audience. So we definitely reached out to, you know, autism organizations and other organizations that deal with accessibility concerts and stuff like that to to make it clear, like, you know, we really… you know, if you guys want to come, we want to have you there, you know, and those three concerts were so successful, the feedback was so overwhelming that we kept putting the concerts on. And now the series is in its seventh season. It... it's... it's still open to the public. But again, very much the people that come are... many of them have disabilities, many of them are on the spectrum or have other sensory considerations, and so it's a very, very diverse and inclusive group in that way. And it's... it's also been a jumping off point for us to work with other organizations that serve clients with sensory concerns. So, for example, as a result of, you know, the accolades that we’ve gotten for our public series, we now work with, for example, Alzheimer Society of Toronto to present concerts for their clients and also another organization, Sunshine Center for Seniors, to present concerts that again have some of some similar accessibility considerations as our public series. But are also... address some other additional concerns that they felt their clients are looking... we're looking for in a series. Yeah. So it's just been really, really wonderful. And the public series takes place at Meridian Hall, which is a very important Toronto venue. And they have been absolutely wonderful about working with us to make the series really successful. We collect feedback at every concert we do, you know, whether it's open to the public or for one of our partners. And, you know, if... and if there is an issue that's been sort of flagged for us, that’s just not welcoming for people, we try to fix it right away. Like, for example, early on in the public series, we... we got feedback from one of the attendees saying that their daughter really loved the concert, but when they went to use the bathroom, they only had the hand blow dryers. And that was just, you know, it was a nightmare. And so they were like: “can you please do something about that?” And we spoke to our venue partner and they were very gracious about it and they worked with us to fix that. So now there are lots of paper towels and the blow dryers were shut off in the washrooms. And so things like that, you know, we're always open to taking feedback and addressing things because, you know, we're still learning too. And like there's a lot of things that come up that sometimes we just didn't anticipate. But the important thing is that we... that we address them. So it's sort of a long background, detailed background of the organization.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:08:03] So in terms of you, what is... you are executive director and artistic director?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:08:08] Yes.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:08:09] What is your responsibility as executive director? Like, what do you... what is your role at Xenia concerts?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:08:14] I... it's a good question. I don't perform anymore. It is a little bit of a unique structure. Some organizations have the two roles separated. A little bit of the reason is that we are still a small organization. But I think especially, you know, at the stage that we're at now, it's actually kind of good to have the two roles connected. I mean, definitely on the executive director side of things, a big part of what I do is obviously trying to get funding for the organization and to advance its mission. But a lot of that involves, you know, creating new partnerships with stakeholders. So venue partners, you know, stakeholder partners like the ones I mentioned, like Alzheimer Society of Toronto and people, you know, people who can benefit or tell us that they can benefit from what we do. And then on the artistic side, I don't perform anymore. But I'm... I am involved with designing, not only the concert experience in terms of like venue set up and stuff like that, but also the artistic content of the series, because one of the things that was flagged early on for us was that, you know, it's not only making sure that there's lots of space to move around and there's a quiet space at the concert and all that stuff. It's also the music itself. So, you know, we... we put on concerts to have amazing music. We... we’re presenting classical music, world music, jazz music, popular music. And... but, you know, I make sure that the length of the concert is not too excessive and the length of individual pieces is appropriate. I make sure that there are breaks, you know, in the concert and stuff like that. And... and it's very, very important to us to ensure that the quality of the music is very high and the performer’s is very high. And they are... we're very lucky to work with very excellent performers. But what we're also lucky for is that the performers have been very generous and open to working, you know, with me to offer programs that are also accessible as well as being artistically, you know, robust. So, you know, sometimes I will have sort of a back and forth with, you know, a new artist that's performing with us for the first time and say, like: “can you propose something to me? And would you tweak this and tweak that? Because I think if you just made those small changes, the audience would really enjoy the music a lot more, you know, based on what's happened in the past.” So that's sort of a little overview of the two roles and how they kind of work in tandem.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:10:46] Most of your, let's say, accessibility programs and things related to that kind of the concerts and stuff, you reached out mostly for them. Did you have any other resources that you used, like people on your team who have maybe some expertise in that area or any occupational therapist or other specialists?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:11:03] Yeah, we... like early on in the... in our learning, we were very... we were working very closely with a psychologist from the SickKids Autism Research Unit who sort of like, I feel like she gave me my sort of fundamental training in understanding a little bit of that world. Whenever we engage in a partnership with an organization, we have a liaison at that organization that works very closely with me to make sure that, you know, we're addressing what our clients are looking for and, you know, adding to their client programming in a really positive way that they appreciate. So, for example, when we started with Alzheimer Society of Toronto, we had a liaison there that spent a lot of time working with me to figure out the series. So she actually came and did like a venue walkthrough with me and sort of flagged things that would be issues for her clients and stuff. And there was a lot of back and forth in the beginning to like make sure that everything was taken care of. And then recently we've been embarking on a new project where we've involved a music therapist to advise us as well. Yeah, we don't get... I was trained to know that I am not a music therapist, and like that's a very, like, separate field. And like a... it's like information that I don't have. But I mean, I admire so much what music therapists do and they're extremely talented. And this latest project that we've been working on has given us an opportunity to work with one in an advisory capacity, because... I'll give you a little information about the project. The project is called sound.colLab, and it's actually, I think, a really positive step that our organization is taking to go beyond just inviting people to come and enjoy music, but also to invite people to get involved in the creative process itself. So we're working… we're going to involve participants on the spectrum, working with a professional composer and a professional string quartet to actually create a new piece of music. So it'll be co-written by the composer and the participants. And the music therapist that we've been working with is Nicole Richard, who is based in Toronto. And she's used a lot of co-compositional techniques in her practice. And so we thought... and she works with people on the spectrum a lot. And so we thought that she would be really helpful to kind of talk to us about, you know, the idea of using co-composition and making it accessible for, you know, our target participants and stuff like that. So that's been super interesting. And she's been excellent
Sophie Yang: [00:13:39] With talking about your audience. I believe you mentioned prior that you had a make-up, for instance, some people in the autism spectrum. I was thinking, do you have any... so for your seniors because they experience a lot of changes as they grow older, what kind of conditions do you see in people perhaps ages over 55 years old, for instance? What kind of accessibility limitations do they have?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:14:11] I've seen some connections between the accessibility considerations for the seniors groups that we work with and the sensory friendly groups. But of course, yeah, also like some individual needs. But one of the things that I worked closely with our liaison at Alzheimer's Society to address was, you know, making sure that getting to the concert space was very clear, that there was like a clear path to follow. So, like, appropriate signage and not... nothing confusing and too... too many winding passageways or anything like that, you know. And, of course, accessible entrance and everything. You know, we... we have a nice space at the theater that doesn't have lights that are too bright. We make sure for those concerts to have breaks where, you know, they can get food and drink if they need. Like some of our concerts with them happened kind of, you know, close to snack time or... and just to have that consistency of knowing that they, you know, can have their… their drink and... and their snack and everything just makes them that much more comfortable. Also, little things, like, one of the interesting things about the space we work in is that it's really, really excellent and the sound is not too loud in there. It's a good sound. It's a nice sound acoustically, but it's not “Boom-y”. It's not overly reverberant and that's really important. But one of the weird things about it is that it has a lot of mirrors along some of the walls. So we've actually put up some curtains in front of the mirrors just to like avoid that visual distraction and overstimulation during the concert. And that's worked well for our public concern and also for the concerns of seniors.
Sophie Yang: [00:15:50] So it sounds like you made a lot of changes and like in considering... with the... improving the accessibility for, like making it not too bright, with considerations on their changes in their sensory... well, essentially sensory changes.
Sarah Nematallah: [00:16:06] Yeah, we've tried to and I think... I think I also mentioned before, you know, we always make sure there's a quiet space as well. So, like, the concert venue is very easy and comfortable to get in and out of. And if people need a break from the sound, they can go, you know...
Sophie Yang: [00:16:20] I was just wondering, like with what you say, like the quiet space, the little food spaces, and even like going back to the story you mentioned before, the little girl with the hand dryer that she had like... wasn't comfortable with. I mean, the customer, like, comments are very important, I believe, with like listening to what they want to say. And I was wondering what kind of systems do you have in place just to understand the challenges that you’ve faced... that are faced by your audience? Like what can they do to make their voices heard?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:16:51] Definitely the concert feedback is important to us. Yeah. We make sure to collect it after every event, even if it's, you know, an event where there are a lot of regulars or where we know a lot of people. They can do it in... by hand, you know, at the concert on paper, but they can also do it online afterwards. We also always, you know, keep in close contact with our partners. So, you know, we will check in and ask them, is there anything that we can do differently? What's been the feedback, you know, like on your end? And so I think, , you know, generally speaking, just making sure to try and keep those lines of communication always open and make people feel comfortable to tell us what needs to be changed and then to address those things right away. So to... so I kind of, you know, act as the liaison with the venue partners. So people will come to me with necessary changes and I'll communicate it to like the network. And yeah. So that's... that's sort of what we have in place.
Christel Seeberger: [00:17:51] Question for you... for you, Sara, just and you were talking about this and I think this is something that's, you know, emerged with Sophie's question about feedback. And we've... we've had just other guests talk a little bit about that, just that walkthrough. Right? So asking people after the fact. Right? But also this... that incredible preparation that you've spoken about. I'm wondering, you shared a little bit, but I'd love to hear more just about what... what you looked for or what you look for in a walkthrough or maybe what you surprisingly have learned by... by doing a walk through in advance?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:18:34] I guess. I mean, like, you know, our walkthroughs will typically start, you know, just at the beginning, at the front door. I mean, even before the front door. Liike one of the considerations is just even transportation getting to the venue. So... and that actually, it's related to the walkthrough, but it affects like the timing of some of our concerts. So the concerts that we do that are open to the public, they take place at 11:00 a.m. And to be honest, that wasn’t actually my first choice in times. We kind of took it in the beginning because it was one of the few times that the venue was available, but it ended up being the absolute best thing ever because they take place at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. And for anyone who deals with traffic, driving in Toronto on a Sunday morning when parking is free and there is no traffic is just like the biggest joy like that I experience. Like, it's so wonderful. So, yeah. So even before they get to the hall, just... and the venue is close to TTC as well. Another thing is, you know, like there's been a couple of times when there have been weather, you know, issues like storms and stuff like that. So we definitely try on our team to keep the lines of communication really open. So if there is whether we're tweeting and we're sending emails to let people know, like, you know, there's this weather issue or part of the TTC has closed down, so you might have to take a different route. And just so they have that extra prep time to adjust, like they're getting to the venue. Something... things like, you know, signage, I think was something that I learned that I didn't know about before that, you know, it's really important. Especially the venue that we work with is very big and there's a lot of parts of it, like in different halls and elevators and things like that. So figuring out, you know, where to put signs so that people would not get confused on their way, you know, to the concert space and having greeters also along the way to make them feel, like, welcome. And there's a friendly face that they're... they're coming to see and then making sure that the chairs are not spaced too close together, that it's really comfortable to get in and out of rows of seats. One of the things that's also been great at our concerts is we make sure that the performers are always on a stage that's not too high so that they don't feel like there's that separation or they can't see properly or anything like that, and that the lights that are on, the performers, you know, are not so bright that they can't, like, look at them. And so, yes, I think that was your question. Right? Like one of the things that I learned, those are some things that stand out while thinking about it.
Christel Seeberger: [00:21:17] Keep… keep walking us through the venue, Sarah. We want... we're really learning every step of the way with you. Yeah.
Sarah Nematallah: [00:21:26] We also put at the back behind, you know, there's an open space, sort of like behind the chairs, and we set up, usually, a dance floor there. So there's a really nice open space where people can move around and express themselves that way. And they also come up onto the stage sometimes, too. So that's really nice. We've had a couple of times when they've come up and turned someone's music page and the artists, like, love it and... because then they don’t have to do it themselves. But yeah, sorry, but going with what you're saying.
Christel Seeberger: [00:21:57] No, I was like, tell me more or tell, you know, tell our listeners more of those are you know, I think that just the very concrete examples that make including, you know, including people across the lifespan, we're talking a little bit more about mature adults and what they look for in experiences both at home and when they travel. But all of the things you've mentioned, Sarah, are just, you know, incredibly thoughtful and also doable. I do have... I was wondering if you had any examples. You really made me think about just that... I'm going to sort of say the co-construction, if you will, of the music. Right? With the artists. Thinking about the audience, you talked about, you know, changes in the... the physicality of the space, some changes in lighting. I'm wondering, has anything ever come up just with changes in... it's just sound. Right? Talk about, you know, hearing and if we think about an older population who are sometimes wearing hearing aids or have some hearing loss. Has anything ever come up around that?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:23:16] I mean, one of the good things about the musicians that we typically work with is almost none of them really use amplification. So that's been sort of like, you know, a problem that we have sort of had to manage a few times because a couple of the groups will use amplification, and when they do, we have very, very careful sound checks like just to make sure it's really just a gloss, just to be able to hear a certain instrument that maybe is not audible, you know, from a... from a distance. But generally speaking, yeah, the... there is no amplification at our concerts. We have had some comments in the past where I think, generally speaking, like almost everything has been really welcome in terms of, you know, instruments and stuff. But occasionally some people have said that, you know, if, for example, we have two violins playing and they're playing really, really high pitches and stuff, sometimes that can be a problem. So that's just... that's a small artistic thing that we've had to stay away from as a... as a result. A big part of what we do is also… and this kind of goes to the artistic direction side is, we make sure to introduce the pieces with speaking and really have like a spoken narrative that goes throughout the concert just so that people know what's coming next. You know, in general, like, we played lots of different kinds of music, like some modern, some classical, and, you know, some of it has been, you know, challenging or had some sounds that maybe are surprising. But we find that a lot of time, if we... if we're... if we're careful and we work with the performers to make sure that they... they tell the audience what's coming, you know, that, like, there's a certain sound coming that maybe, like, you know, might be a bit loud or something like that. It allows the audience to, you know, the audience, individual audience, or decide if they're going to be, you know, if they feel like they maybe need to put on some noise muffling headphones or otherwise, you know, get away from the space. So that's... that's been sort of important to us just to have you know, sometimes we'll put up not so much for some of the senior concerts, but sometimes we'll actually put up boards with a list of all the pieces and kind of like point them out as we're going in. And we always have concert programs and, yeah, the pieces are always introduced ahead of time.
Christel Seeberger: [00:25:31] Fascinating examples. And just again, very practical, easy things to do. You make me wonder then about just a little bit, OK, during... during the concert, during the performance, letting people know what to expect because this is a very different experience. Right? You are really making the music and the performance accessible and I would imagine being there would look and feel differently, right, from other concert experiences that people may have had. What... do you have any strategies or anything you've learned to do about letting people know in advance and that, you know, from, you know, what type of information you share on your... on your website, how you disseminate that information, how you describe this? What are some of the strategies to... to let people know before they even arrive about what to expect?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:26:30] Yeah, yeah. I mentioned before that we... I know that, well, I've been told by some of the people that we consulted with. There's a few different ways to approach things. I know, like there's... there’s one of my contacts in California who presents a similar kind of sensory friendly series there feels really strongly about, you know, making it just for... for him, he's doing it for the people on the autism spectrum and making it sort of just for them , you know. So a place that they feel they own. The approach that we've taken and hopefully it's been appreciated is to make it open to everybody so that it really feels like a place where society can generally come and be together. But to make it clear on all of our advertising that it is a sensory friendly concert, we're always very careful to say all behaviors are welcome at this concert. And this includes, you know, singing, dancing, moving around, stuff like that. And, you know, we'll often say, like, it's an accessible concert, it's a sensory friendly concert. We'll use, like, all forms of media. And we'll also use, like, I do a lot of personal reaching out to groups that I think might be interested in the show to tell them, you know, this is something, like, that hopefully you would be interested in. And we have tried to take into account these considerations and, you know, would that be good for your... for your client base? So that's sort of I think that's kind of the approach that we've taken.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:27:52] Yeah. Speaking of your concerts, I'm assuming during these... this past year and a half or two years, have you been doing concerts, streaming them online or providing any online kind of services or…?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:28:05] Yes, it's been quite a special year. My goodness.. Well, I mean, you know, for... for so many groups. But like, you know, I'm connected to the arts community, so, like, definitely for artists, covid has been just really awful and life changing and, yeah, really impactful. And when, you know, the lockdown hit back in March 2020, that was a very active time for me and my team. We had to learn everything about technology very, very quickly. But we... we just... I think we all just kind of came together and reacted and said, like, we don't want this to stop us. And we immediately switched to live streamed concerts. So actually, you know, there were a couple concerts that were kind of lost in the fray unavoidably. But in general, we've been able to meet, you know, our targets and we've continued to do live stream concerts, both ones that are, you know, open more widely to the public and ones that are specifically for our client partners. And that's been great in terms of, you know, being able to still engage artists and still engage the people that are really enjoying our music. We had to make some changes, like, for example, we grappled a lot in the beginning with, you know, how are we going to do this? Is it safe for artists to even be streaming? So we had a policy when in the times when the numbers were really high and it really wasn't safe for people even to be going, you know, to malls and stuff like that. We... we had a policy that we would engage artists who lived in the same home and could live stream from their home to help them be safer. And then when things got a little bit more under control, we would set up live streams from studios where maybe there were seven or eight people in the building at a time. And there were like a lot of stringent protocols in place. But so those were some of like the unexpected changes that we had to make. I will say the one thing that's been hard, I think, for everyone, including and especially the audience members, is one of the great things about our live concerts was that it was a chance for people to get out and be together in a public space and to meet other people and socialize with others in a really, you know, welcoming and inclusive environment. And that, unfortunately, has been unavoidably lost. I mean, we've... we've done our best with, you know, trying to have Q&A and kind of, you know, think of other interactive things to do with live stream. But there's no substitute for, you know, being together and experiencing music and the arts together. So... so we have a plan for kind of transitioning out of covid, so we're going to keep the live streams going for a while, but... and overlap them a bit with when we're able to go back to live performances so that, you know, if some people need a little bit more time to get back to normal, then they'll have that. But, yeah, we can't wait to... to get back to the... to the live because it's definitely been... it's that social experience and enjoying the arts together is... is important and it's been lost.
Christel Seeberger: [00:31:18] Just having that live stream experience, and we've seen some other sensory friendly examples around live streaming, is there anything that you changed in being virtual? Yeah, Christopher is giving me the thumbs up. We were thinking the same question. Anything that you changed with a virtual experience to, you know, be more accommodating to maybe someone with a, you know, different sensory challenge?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:31:50] I guess, like the biggest thing was just making sure from an acoustic perspective that the sound quality of our live performances was really good quality sound, clear. And again, very I mean, not... not that it didn't have contour, but like a more level, not a lot of super high pitches and stuff like that. Like especially, you know, with violins and some of the higher pitched instruments, if you don't get the the mixing right and stuff like that with the the sound equipment, you can cause a lot of, you know, like, not so nice sounds, I think just... inadvertently that might not even be what the musicians sound like. Right? It's just like going through the technology itself. So we've had... and my... my managing director, Paolo has been amazing at sort of working on that. And he does these, you know, sound checks. We... we have invested in, you know, like, equipment, like professional grade sound equipment. And he does these great sound checks before. And there's a lot of like mixing and leveling and making sure. So it's funny because that was something that we often like 99 percent of the time didn't have to worry about with our acoustic concerts because the acoustic stuff was, you know, just a little bit easier to work with. And now we're all, you know, dealing with the sort of like the plugged in sound all the time. And so yeah, I think that's been the biggest thing. And we've tried to keep really firm with, you know, keeping the speaking portions of the concert the same. So like letting people know about, like, what's coming next and stuff like that. And we will still create our concert programs in PDF format and we put them up on the website so people can actually download them, print them out, and follow along with the program at home. And, you know, sometimes we'll even have little... we have little, like, programs with checkboxes. So if they want they can kind of check off the song that they just heard and stuff like that. Yeah. So those have been... but definitely, like, the... making sure the mixing and everything is good has been the most important, I think, change.
Sophie Yang: [00:33:47] You know, with everything returning back to normal, you may be able to host like in person concerts again, what kind of barriers do you think will be there that may prevent that ideal enjoyable experience to your customers?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:34:00] It's a little hard to say because the guidelines keep changing all the time. But I mean, I'm not expecting to have the same, you know, fullness of the spaces right away in terms of how many people can sort of be in the room together. So we might have to do, you know, some different positioning of chairs and performers and stuff like that. You know, I imagine that they'll have to be masks for... for a while. And honestly, I'm anticipating that not all of our audience will be able to come back, like, right away in the beginning. It seems like it's going to be sort of a gradual, you know, move out of this pandemic. So that's why our plan is to do the live stream, plus the live in tandem as soon as we can to allow, you know, people to self-select which one they want to be at and to come back to the live when they're comfortable.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:34:52] Earlier on, you were mentioning that you're a pretty group and you keep adapting to new environments and new types of people who want to accommodate. Are there changes that you haven't done so far that you know of and you're working towards getting them in place?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:35:07] Yeah, I think... I think one of the things I've learned the most this year is that I need to keep learning and that the whole organization has to always be sort of learning. I mean, one thing that we're really trying to work on is to have more, you know, sign language friendly elements at our concerts and stuff to include more people and to include... the sound.colLab project has been involving lots of people with different considerations and some of them have visual impairment. So we're trying to address now, you know, for people who... who don't have the... the visual aspect. Like what accommodations can we have to make the event really enjoyable for them? So those are sort of two areas that we're working on right now specifically. And... and I think also, you know, just trying to understand inclusion generally as well and considerations that, you know, might... might be there for communities from different parts of the city and from different backgrounds and stuff like that. I think... I think now with all the stuff that's going on in Canada and in the world, I think people are, you know, thinking about inclusion on a lot of different dimensions at the same time and trying to figure out how to really adapt and, you know, to get to a better place where people really do feel comfortable,, you know, no matter what, to enjoy, you know, music and the art.
Christopher Basmadjian: [00:36:32] Thinking of, like, future events, like are there any... any... is there a vision that you have of future events that you want to accomplish any accessibility... in terms of who you want to come and perform? In terms of just a global vision of…?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:36:48] I think. Yeah. So I was actually saying to Crystal before this started that I've been with the organization for seven years and actually I'm transitioning out of the role and I have a wonderful replacement coming in who is so excellent and so devoted to these things. Just so, to some extent, his vision will be the vision for the organization. So we're eager to hear his thoughts. But I think, I mean, I think definitely two ideas that our board and that me personally have had since the beginning is that, you know, just to try and make, well, first of all, to always be looking for or, you know, having the door open and inviting people who feel that they don't have access to the arts to come to us and tell us like: “we feel that we don't have access to the arts. Can you bring the arts to us in some way?” So that, you know, might... might mean, you know, I mean, it would be great to... to engage with populations maybe that even have like physical barriers. I mean, one of the... one of the things that we've always wanted is to try and do our concerts in more places. So, you know, to go into northern Ontario and to different... not just the big city to try and bring them to like, you know, Autism Ontario, for example, has chapters all over the province, so to try and connect with that network and find out, can we go to Sudbury? Can we go to North Bay? And... and, you know, and get to some of these communities. And... and then also just to really diversify the... the arts that we're presenting. So like I said, I come from a classical background, and that is, like, definitely what I know the most about. And I've been trying, over the last few years, to diversify my... my knowledge of artistic genres and also to bring more of those genres to our audience. So we've been engaging more jazz artists, more world music artists, you know, and artists, and I think we can go much, much, much further than that, you know. I think there's a lot more out there and we're really only just... we've dipped our toe. So those are... those are some of the goals. But I mean, one of the things that's important to us is we never want to presume, you know, that we have something that people need. We really, really want to hear from the communities, for them to say “we feel that we don't have access to the art.” So I hesitate to sort of impose, you know, on, especially since I'm leaving the organization, to impose sort of that idea on any community. But I know my predecessor has lots of ideas.
Christel Seeberger: [00:39:18] What a wonderful vision, Sarah. All right. Sarah, I was just... I just wanted to give a final opportunity because all of the examples you've given have just been so rich, very sensory rich, Sarah. Just very rich. Rich examples are just a very rich description of the positive changes that can be made. And I really appreciate that it's been from... from so many points of view. Right? From what, you know, literally changing the music and how the music is performed and not just the venue. Earlier, you did say a little bit, you’ve alluded to and you've described many examples, I just wanted to give a final opportunity to, if anything else came to mind about specifically, you talked about your initial... initially working with organizations that worked with older adults and that how, you know, some of the needs were a little bit different from maybe what you'd offered before. Is there anything, you know, that really stood out that in making music accessible and these performance accessible to older adults, that... that was really key. Right? For you or, you know, key for other people to... to... to grasp and understand?
Sarah Nematallah: [00:40:44] I mean, I kind of already talked about the... like the transportation to the venue was a big... a big thing. I know, like when we do concerts with the Sunshine Centers for Seniors group, you know, just being able to get to the venue was so... so perhaps transportation needed to be organized and stuff like that and... and making sure that the venue wasn't too hot or too cold. I think temperature was... was a big one for them as well. So those are two that really stood out as... as difference. But I was surprised actually at how much was similar. And it just kind of speaks to, I think you've kind of talked about this on your website, which is so excellent and your expertise is just so rich, that the idea that, like, sensory friendly is good for everybody. You know, like if you... if you touch some of these changes, then like everybody feels good. So there were... there was a lot of shared things, but yeah, definitely temperature and the transportation were two big ones.
Sophie Yang: [00:41:41] Thank you to Sarah Nematallah, co-founder of Xenia Concerts for joining us and sharing your journey to providing welcoming, accessible, age-friendly performances for everyone. Thank you as well to our listeners. We hope you're enjoying and learning from the 55+ Travelers: Arriving and Thriving audio conference brought to you by Sensory Friendly Solutions. We have another episode dedicated to making performances at theaters welcoming and accessible to mature audiences with Laura Casswell, director of education at Neptune Theater. Be sure to listen to that episode too. You can find more resources about making tourist attractions, events, and location sensory friendly at sensoryfriendly.net.
