Therese Schroeder-Sheker

Harpist, singer, educator and clinician. Therese Schroeder-Sheker has maintained her triple vocation by simultaneously working in classical music, higher education and end-of-life care.  

She founded the palliative medical modality of music-thanatology and its flagship organization The Chalice of Repose Project.  Therese made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1980; taught on the faculties of Catholic University of America in Washington DC and Duke University in Raleigh-Durham; records for American and European record labels such as Sony, Celestial Harmonies and Curve Blue; has worked with the needs of the dying for fifty years; and publishes frequently on the women mystics, music-in-medicine, and contemplative musicianship.  

The interdisciplinary nature of her calling allowed her to meet and work with exemplars in both sciences and humanities, and this is how she came to meet, work with and cherish David Peat and the Pari Center community.