Musicoterapia

I have traveled and taught in nearly 45 countries: at an orphanage in Greenland, in refugee camps, and alongside migrants and refugees who escaped war. I learned to teach when words were not enough, and to build community through music. Somewhere along the way, I forgot something essential: to support others, we also need support.

In the beginning of the war on Gaza, I was displaced from my town of Beit Hanoun at 3 a.m. We were running, without shoes, without anything. We arrived in Jabalia, near Gaza City. I was not thinking about music; I was just running for a safe place.

Bombs destroyed the well-equipped buildings of the Palestine National Conservatory and war displacement scattered its faculty. But that didn’t stop them.

In the winter of 2013, Project: Music Heals Us Founder Molly Carr shattered a glass bowl into her left hand on the eve of her concert tour, halting her performing career. In the months that followed, she enrolled in a nursing aide course through the American Red Cross and was assigned to work with Ruth, a late-stage Alzheimer’s patient who, staff warned her, hadn’t spoken in years. The advice she received was practical: get in, get the job done, harden yourself to the screams, and get out.

She knew that the care and attention all people need required something more. So she sat down, held Ruth’s hand in silence, and Ruth, the woman who had not spoken in years, turned and began speaking in complete sentences.

Molly came back every day of that residency. On the last day, she promised Ruth that she would return, and bring her viola next time.

What does visual art have to do with listening?

It’s an unusual question—but one that’s well worth exploring, as I discovered recently when I attended Sguardi Paralleli (Parallel Glances) – Art Therapy and Autism: Art as Language, an exhibition held in Alassio, Italy and curated by art therapist Carla Paura.

“Social Music as a Prescription for Maintaining Wellness” is an article by renowned U.S. jazz musician Jon Batiste and Joanne Loewy, Director of the Department of Music Therapy and Professor at New York City’s Icahn School of Medicine.

When Lotus Centre for Special Music Education opened its doors in Ottawa, Canada in 2012, we thought our mission was clear: provide access to high-quality music instruction for students with exceptionalities and disabilities who were being left out of traditional lessons. What we didn’t yet realize was that our students were about to become our greatest teachers, shifting our organization from a provider of services to a learning community shaped directly by their needs and strengths.

Two new books examine the use of music therapy with people who have experienced forced displacement, highlighting the importance of historical and contextual knowledge of how music can both help and harm people.

Music’s wide-ranging health benefits received a new wave of recognition through the recent publication of two studies, each showing long-lasting benefits from music engagement.

La enseñanza artística es el gigante dormido del cambio social. 

Y ese gigante está despertando. Al menos eso es lo que afirmo, en mi incesante defensa del ámbito mundial.