Artsahealing – Artsawonder

A spate of scholarly studies has demonstrated that music and musical education enhance our capacity for interpersonal connection and conflict resolution. For example, empirical research has now demonstrated marked elevations in the capacity for empathy; for bonding and attachment, and prosocial behaviour in those with musical training when compared to those without such training (see references). Yet Western culture has been slow to acknowledge the actual and potential role of music/music education in development, as well as individual and social healing. According to Ian Cross, PhD (Founder of the Center for the Study of Music and Science at the University of Cambridge) “without music, the future of humanity would be quite bleak – and brief.”

With Bruce S. Victor (psychiatrist and musician) as Director of Programmes for Artsahealing we have put on conferences at both musical festivals and academic centres. Bruce has recently taken up the mantle to write a column in Irish Music Magazine on the subject of music and healing.

Music and Healing Seminar 2023

At the second annual music and healing seminar in July 2023 presentations from Dr Bruce Victor, Bróna McVittie, Tommy Sands and Gabriel Scally explored the psychological, biological, social and cultural roles of the healing power of music. Members of the audience were invited to participate and share their stories.

Irish Music Magazine Articles

Music and Healing Seminar 2022

In July 2022 as part of the annual Fiddlers Green International Festival, we gathered for the inaugural Artsahealing seminar, an exploration of the healing powers of music, featuring talks and performances from Dr Darin Weinberg, Geralyn Mulqueen, Tura Artura, Dr Bruce Victor, Dr Gabriel Scally, Tommy Sands and singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. The film below also also features excerpts from the annual Music of Healing Concert, which followed the conference.

Artsahealing team

Bruce Victor / Member

Tommy Sands / Member

Bróna McVittie / Member

Artsahealing advisors

Lisa M. Wong MD is a pediatrician, musician, and author dedicated to the healing arts of music and medicine. She is a violinist, violist and pianist an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, whefe she is also Associate Co-Director of their Arts and Humanities Initiative. In April 2012, she published her first book, Scales to Scalpels: Doctors who practice the healing arts of Music and Medicine, in collaboration with writer Robert Viagas. Dr. Wong served as president from 1991-2012 of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, a Boston-based orchestra made up primarily of medical musicians dedicated to Healing the Community through Music, and is a member of its violin section. Dr. Wong is a board member of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the BPS Arts Initiative Advisory Council and Lesley University Institute for Arts and Health. She has served on the boards of All-Newton Music School and Young Audiences of Massachusetts and has an ongoing interest in Venezuela’s El Sistema music-for-social-change program and Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S.

Darin Weinberg PhD is a Professor of Sociology and Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He held a Lindesmith Fellowship for Drug Policy Studies, from the Lindesmith Center of the Open Society Institute in 2000-2001. In 2011 Darin won the Melvin Pollner Prize in Ethnomethodology from the American Sociological Association's Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis for his book Of Others Inside and the Outstanding Article Award from the Social Problems Theory Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In 2018 Darin again won the Melvin Pollner Prize in Ethnomethodology for his book Contemporary Social Constructionism. Watch Prof. Weinberg's Saul O. Sidore Memorial lecture at the University of New Hampshire,"Towards an Ecological Understanding of Addiction" and his presentation at Artsahealing 2022.

Marin Hubler is Vice President of Bread and Roses. From Dayton, Ohio, Marian believes in the power of positive culture to effect meaningful change. She has worked as a ranger for the National Park Service and in public relations, cultural programming and special events management. A singer and writer, she appreciates the culturally creative Bay Area. She met the late Mimi Fariña on Alcatraz in 1995 and came to Bread & Roses Presents shortly afterwards where she has worked as a concert producer and part-time blogger ever since. She has a BA in English from Trinity University, Washington D.C. In her spare time, she looks for swans.

References

Music and Conflict Resolution and Peace Making

Eva Bojner Horwitz, Kaja Korošec, and Töres Theorell, Can Dance and Music Make the Transition to a Sustainable Society More Feasible? Sci. 2022,12,11. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/bs12010011
Gillian Howell, Harmonious relations: A framework for studying varieties of peace in music-based peacebuilding https://doi.org/10.1177/1542316620948493
Elaine C. King, The Roles of Music in Effecting Change: Considerations about Public Policy DOI: 10.1177/2059204320937227 journals.sagepub.com/home/mns

Music and Neurobiology

Alan Harvey, “Links Between the Neurobiology of Oxytocin and Musicality” Hum. Neurosci., 26 August 2020
Arla Good, Frank A Russo Changes in mood, oxytocin, and cortisol following group and individual singing: A pilot study
Keeler, “The Neuochemistry and Social Flow of Singing, Bonding and Oxytocin, Front Hum. Neurosci., 26 August 2020. First Published October 25, 2021 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356211042668

Music and the Development of Empathy and Prosocial Behaviour

Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, Ian Cross, and Pamela Burnard, Long-Term Musical Group Interaction Has a Positive Influence on Empathy (citation to follow)
Tal Chen Rabinowitch, How Rather Than What Type of Music Increases Empathy (citation to follow)