Music, mind, medicine conference brings together musicians, physicians

Kathy Jennings | Thursday, October 3, 2013

The worlds of music, psychology, and medicine will be synchronized in an upcoming conference in downtown Kalamazoo.

The first Music, Mind and Medicine Conference,Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 9-10, will bring more than 100 physicians, musicians, health care practitioners, educators, music therapists, psychologists, clinicians and therapists to the Radisson Plaza Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo.

Conference attendees will present the latest research on the neuroscience of music; music's role in health, healing and education; and improvisation's connection to creativity and consciousness.

There will be performances as well as presentations and opportunities to experience the ideas being discussed.

Regina Carter, a MacArthur Fellowship Genius Award-winning and Grammy-nominated violinist, and her quartet, which includes WMU alumnus and jazz pianist Xavier Davis will be in concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, in the WMU Dalton Center Recital Hall as part of the conference. The performance is open to the public.

Michigan Hiryu Daiko with Sensei Esther Vandecar and guest John Iversen of San Diego Taiko will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10. This concert also is open to the public and admission is free.

New results in music therapies, such as using music to help victims of stroke or traumatic brain injury as well as those suffering from Parkinson's disease or other neurological disorder will be discussed. For example, the use of rhythm as expressed in music can have very beneficial results in restoring normal gate and motor function in individuals with neurological disorders.

The conference is meant to be "this interwoven experience between science and medicine and music," says Edward Roth, the WMU professor of music and music therapist who organized the event. He says in the discipline, there's a disconnect between the people doing the basic science research and the people doing the clinical research. And then, of course, that information has to make it to the actual therapists.

Roth also has invited a panel that features physicians who also are pianists or experienced in other instruments. Of the two neuroscientists, one is a guitarist, the other a drummer. Carter, who hails from Detroit, is the panel's professional musician and also has studied music therapy.

"One of the coolest aspects of this particular panel is that everybody on it is a really good musician, as well as having a professional life in some science discipline," Roth says. "Everyone on the panel has crossover expertise."

Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Mark Schwerin, Western Michigan University