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A new mother walked out of the hospital with her newborn to the soothing sounds of ‘‘Bach Suite No. 2.”

Later, a mother entering the hospital lobby with her teenage son in a wheelchair was greeted with the theme from ‘‘The Sound of Music.”

Hospital employees ventured out of their offices for a brief break in their day, while patients and visitors stopped for a moment to enjoy the music, drawing crowds of almost 20 people at one time.

And this was only their second performance.

Ron Benfield is the hospital’s chief financial officer by day and cellist by night — or at least for half an hour in the afternoon once a month.

Marianne Scriven works in the human resources department and plays the piano with Benfield during the monthly concerts.

‘‘Actually, it’s not really a ‘concert,’” Benfield said. ‘‘We want to be part of the environment.”

Shady Grove’s newly built lobby, which opened last January, incorporates elements of the Planetree program to emphasize the hospital’s efforts to create a healing environment, said Carol Chandler, a nurse and the hospital’s Planetree coordinator.

Planetree is a national nonprofit organization that assists hospitals in creating a healing environment that is centered on the patient.

‘‘We try to put together an experience that’s as healing as we possibly can,” Chandler said. ‘‘It transforms the healthcare facility from institutional to inviting and warm. When people feel vulnerable and there’s a loss of control, we put comfort back in.”

The recent Tuesday’s set of music included classical pieces such as ‘‘Andante” by Handel and more modern songs like ‘‘Yesterday” by The Beatles.

The music-makers did not rehearse this time, they admitted, but one could not tell.

Benfield had a book of Bach pieces for the cello in front of him as he played, but once Scriven began playing ‘‘Yesterday” or ‘‘The Sound of Music,” he played the melody by ear.

The idea to play came to Scriven as she walked through the lobby one day and saw the baby grand piano, which is programmed to play during the day, and thought it would be nice to play there.

‘‘This new lobby lends itself, with the hard floors and no carpet,” Scriven said. ‘‘It sounds great in here.”

And when she discovered that her old friend, Benfield, joined the staff at Shady Grove this year, she thought it would be a good idea to play together.

Scriven and Benfield have known each other since Benfield was a student and Scriven was a music teacher at Pacific Union College in California.

Both have been playing their respective instruments since they were 6 years old.

Benfield comes from a family of musicians. Both his parents are musicians who had a dream of having four children to play in a string quartet. That dream came true, and Benfield and his two sisters and one brother still play together. Their most recent performance was at a family reunion this year.

Benfield said he began college as a music major, but later switched to business when he interned at a hospital and enjoyed it. For most of his career he has worked within the Adventist Healthcare company. He started as Shady Grove’s chief financial officer in January.

Scriven, on the other hand, spent years as a music teacher, teaching voice in college and conducting choirs in church. Until a couple years ago, Scriven was a choral director at the Sligo Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

She later got a degree in public health, following her childhood dream of going into the medical field.

‘‘I always wanted to be a physician as a child, but when I was in school, it wasn’t typical for women to go into medicine,” Scriven said.

Although their careers are not related to music, both Benfield and Scriven use the opportunity of playing in the hospital lobby to go back to those roots and use it help others.

‘‘It aids in the whole rehab process and puts people’s minds at ease,” Scriven said.

‘‘If we made somebody’s day easier, whether it’s the valet parkers or the coffee guy who said, ‘You really made my day,’” it’s worth it, Benfield added.

Elizabeth Castle, a clinical pastoral education student at the hospital, said the music was very uplifting.

‘‘When you come in, it really feels like a place of healing,” Castle said.

One patient, Nelson Manso, wandered into the lobby as the music began playing and sat down on the couch while his wife Luz got some coffee. He sat through the entire performance, listening quietly and applauding after each song.

Afterwards, Nelson Manso said the music was ‘‘muy bueno” — Spanish for ‘‘very good” — and that he felt very relaxed.

Luz Manso added that she wished they played more.