NORTHAMPTON — On Saturday afternoons, patients at Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s behavioral health unit are treated to the sounds of soothing piano music, hearing tunes such as “You Got a Friend and Me,” and “Hallelujah.”

And it’s all thanks to a chance encounter that happened in the hospital elevator between Jacqueline Ouellette, the director of inpatient behavioral health at Cooley Dickinson, and Noah Daube-Valois, a 17-year-old Northampton High School student working at the hospital as a food service assistant.

“Noah approached us in the elevator, he was delivering food to the unit and asked if we thought that the patients would like some music,” Ouellette recalled. “We were just really impressed by him being able to approach people and to want to play for our patients up on the behavioral health unit.”

Though currently working at the hospital, Daube-Valois is an aspiring pianist, having played since he was 7 years old and having begun to take his playing more seriously for the past two years. Currently, he’s taken an interest in ragtime music, tossing off Scott Joplin’s famous work “The Entertainer” from memory.

“I really love the performance aspect of piano,” Daube-Valois said. “I love just playing in front of the audience, and bringing music to other people.”

For the last six months, Daube-Valois has spent weekends performing for the behavioral health patients, many admitted due to mental health crises, giving them a respite from their struggles. Music can have a strong effect on patients’ overall mood, according to Megan McCarthy, who works in the unit.

“The music will start playing and their affect truly changes,” McCarthy said. “It’s like a natural, beautiful medicine.”

One of Daube-Valois’s favorite moments from performing came from playing a duet with a patient who played piano as a kid.

“Wanting to inspire her to perform in front of others despite any nervousness she was experiencing, I asked her what songs she knew,” he said. From there, Noah and the patient played “Heart and Soul” together.

Daube-Valois routinely hears multiple requests from patients on songs to play, often having to listen to the song before playing for the patient. The music can be therapeutic not just for the patients, but for the staff as well, says Oullette.

“We are working in very high-stress jobs,” Oullette said. “I think being able to listen to somebody who is playing and seeing the reactions of our patients, it gives us a great feeling inside knowing that everybody is happy at that moment.”

Daube-Valois will look to continue to play for patients at the hospital until the fall, when he will begin attending Vassar College in New York as a freshman. While there, he hopes to continue studying music.

“I love performance and composing, and then also music therapy is something that I’m discovering,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what I want to do, but music is definitely something I want to pursue.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.