Established in 2018, through a planning grant from the Barr Foundation, the Berklee Music and Health Institute sets the stage for interdisciplinary collaboration among experts in academia, healthcare, technology, music, and public policy in music and health. Through active development and engagement of partnerships, the institute serves as a national model to deepen our knowledge, build capacity, and lead innovative programs that foster solutions designed to impact the overall health of our collective communities.
- We believe all of us connect and react to music physiologically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, and/or behaviorally. By using music to address our health, we recognize the necessity of considering the entirety of the human experience through a modern healthcare lens.
- We believe health is a continuum, from disease management to wellness. It is an ongoing process of building resilience for the mind, body, and spirit. It recognizes that the health of an individual is related to the larger society, culture, and environment.
- We believe there are many intersections of music and health and uses of music to influence health. There is a need to understand the diversity of music practices for health, including research knowledge, existing programs integrating music and health, skills required to apply music for health, and special delivery options for music-based experiences.
- We believe that our understanding of the relationship between music, health, and overall well being is immensely complex, and we must be synergistic in order to best serve our local and global communities. This includes combining our resources, diverse skill sets and expertise to understand music’s power and place in modern healthcare.
Watch this video to see what happened at our Music and Health Innovation Summit, at which key experts and stakeholders in the fields of music, science, business, and biotechnology worked to identify critical music and health challenges posed to hackers in the April 5–7 Hackathon.
Featured Conversations Video
Watch what music therapist Jasmine Edwards has to say about the benefits of music in neonatal intensive care units, and then check out more on-on-one interviews in our Conversations video series, featuring key experts offering their perspectives on the intersection of music, medicine, technology, and health and wellness.