Suzanne De Chillo wasn’t entirely enthusiastic when she set out to create a photo essay about hospice care and music therapy. In fact, she was a little scared.

“Nobody really wants to think about death,” she said. Confronting the subject was particularly difficult for Ms. De Chillo, whose husband died of cancer.

“Sometimes when you take photographs of things that are disturbing, you kind of use the camera as a shield and you kind of protect yourself,” she said. “You’re not really there.”

Suzanne De Chillo/The New York Times

When Ms. De Chillo embarked on her project early in June, though, she was encouraged by the resolve of the music therapists she encountered, who work for MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care. In every case, it seemed that just a few minutes of music could turn a room — any room — into a special place. The melodies, and the interactions they inspired, opened her mind. They made her feel present.

She photographed six patients for the project, which was published online Sunday with a multimedia feature, “In Hospice Care, Singing for Relief.” The youngest subject is a 6-month-old baby, Cecilia Havre, who has a genetic disorder called trisomy 18. Many infants born with the disorder don’t survive beyond their first week. Meredith Traver, the therapist, played the guitar for Cecilia’s parents, Chantel Vazquez and Eddie Havre, in their apartment.

Another subject, Kui San Sung, 60, is dying of lung cancer. Before playing Chinese folk songs for him, Ms. Traver asked Mr. Kui to imagine himself outside of his Chinatown nursing home; to imagine he was in the song. He closed his eyes, and when the songs were over, he clapped for Ms. Traver and his nursing aide, Lin Ho Tsang.

“The music and the song — it would create something very beautiful,” Ms. De Chillo said. “I think when somebody is dying, that person has a kind of gift to give the people around him.”

“It was a gift to me, too.”