Thank you so much for your support of the Ohio University Music Therapy program! While our focus is on saving this program and the impact that must be sustained across the Appalachia area, this is a multi-state art and health advocacy need. The media continue to share the data on how music therapy is essential for social determinants of health and mental health. Media has identified how political the closure of university programs has become across multiple states. We must continue our fight so the public does not lose these vital services.
I am thrilled to share our endorsement by Renée Fleming, Soprano and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health:
I fully endorse this petition and all efforts to protect and support the Ohio University Music Therapy program. Abandoning this crucial offering of a leading state research university runs counter to the prevailing direction of scientific inquiry and developing practice, and it would leave the state behind the curve in delivering the latest advances in integrative healthcare to its students and citizens.
For the last decade, I have been involved in collaborations across the country uniting physicians, policymakers, researchers, artists, and clinicians to fully realize the rigorously documented potential of music and creative arts therapies for specific health interventions and lifelong well-being.
Research clearly demonstrates that children studying a musical instrument show measurable improvements in auditory processing and cognitive development, and these benefits contribute to their achievement in other pursuits. With profound implications for pain management, PTSD, and opioid use, music therapies can be used to increase dopamine and serotonin levels, and reduce the stress hormone cortisol, helping to mitigate stress, anxiety, and depression,
Because of its deep neurological reach throughout the brain, music can make dimensions of human experience accessible and improve a variety of vital functions, even when other capacities decline. Individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease, unable to recognize loved ones, can often recall entire songs from their youth, offering caregivers and loved ones rare episodes of connection and clarity. Music therapists, using melodic intonation therapy, are helping aphasic stroke patients recover the power of speech, sometimes in one session. Rhythmic entrainment can help some Parkinson’s patients, unable to rise from a chair or walk through a door, dance.
Music therapists are the trained professionals who help individuals and communities access these cost-effective, non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical treatments. It would be tragic and destructive if the Ohio University Music Therapy program could not continue its 75‑year legacy of long‑term positive impact on students, patients, and the broader community.
A big thank you to Renée!
Please keep sharing the petition, talk to the press, and support the arts!
Jeff