Events

Upcoming Events

2025 Annual Music Research Networks Investigator Meeting
POSTPONED
The meeting planners will reschedule the event to ensure full participation from the research community. 

Description: The February 6 2025 Annual Music Research Networks Investigator Meeting has been postponed.
The meeting will provide opportunities to share advances across four National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded music-based research networks (ENSEMBLE, Music4Pain, Audio Analgesia and Music, and Dementia Research Network) and promote collaboration. The meeting’s open session will be open to all and online. The open session will feature:  opening remarks from Dr. Helene Langevin (Director, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health) and Melinda Kelley (Associate Director for Scientific Strategy, Innovation and Management, National Institutes of Aging); and updates from the four networks and several working groups that work across the four networks. The event is highlighted by a fireside chat with Dr. Francis Collins (former Director of NIH, current NIH Distinguished Investigator, NIH) Kevin Klock (Senior Vice President, Foundation of the NIH), Sunil Iyengar (Director of Research & Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts), and Deborah Rutter (President, Kennedy Center). The Fireside chat will be moderated by Dr. Jane Simoni (Director, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), NIH). After registration, a member of our team will contact you with details.

Past Events

Music Selection in Mechanistic Research
October 9, 2024
Description: The NIH-funded Music4Pain Research Network announces a webinar series focused on understanding how music can reduce pain and improve pain management. This series will highlight the design of high-quality mechanistic research studies and review the current evidence on hypothesized mechanisms. All webinars are free to attend, but registration is required. Our first webinar, titled ‘Music Selection in Mechanistic Research’, will take place on October 9 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST. The session will cover critical considerations for music selection in research studies, such as music preference, music-related memories, recorded versus live music, and how these considerations may differ between laboratory and clinical settings.

Art for Health's Sake
June 11, 2024
Description: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (U.S. NIH) is hosting a one-day virtual workshop titled "Arts for Health’s Sake” on Tuesday, 11 June 2024, from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm US Eastern Standard Time. This workshop will feature a keynote address followed by a moderated Q&A session in the morning. In the afternoon, there will be several, private breakout sessions that will discuss predetermined questions around the state of the science as well as the barriers/facilitators to research in the following spaces: (1) Implementation-ready art-based interventions for health (2) Using art to disseminate health knowledge (3) Art-based implementation strategies. The workshop will conclude with a report-out from each breakout session to the general audience.

Pearls of Wisdom: 30 Years of Music & Medicine
May 6, 2024
Description: The Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine is commemorating its 30th anniversary in 2024. Using this milestone as an anchor point, on May 6, 2024, we hope to convene and stimulate clinicians, researchers, and therapists to present some new and novel achievements in reflecting on how far the practice and field of music therapy in medicine and music and medicine has come. Acknowledging many of our past speakers and conferences, this symposium will set the course for the future decades. We will target influential trends in disease management such as the inclusion of, Healing breath, Oncology, AI, with definition and explication of how Diversity will be addressed. Additional focus on various landmarks in practice development such as population-based care: NICU, pediatrics, older adults and clinic-based mental health will stimulate our celebration. Enriching areas will include live, music-based care in maintaining well-being as it is our hope that leaders, influencers, researchers, and developers will attend. This event is meant to be cross-audience in order to facilitate high-level learning that will move the field forward across generations and cultures.

Research Network Summit for Music, Brain Health, and Dementia
May 13-16, 2024
Description: The NIH/NIA-funded Music & Dementia Research Network will host the in-person “Music, Brain Health, and Dementia Summit” at the AARP headquarters in Washington, D.C. on May 13-16, 2024. We are inviting approximately 50 experts, graduate students, and postdoctoral trainees from multiple disciplines (e.g., neuroscience, psychology, music therapy, engineering, neurology, computer science, advocacy) to work together in a series of workgroups and workshops focused on mechanistic studies of music in the context of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (ADRD). During the summit, we will 1) identify research gaps and opportunities, 2) generate novel ideas and hypotheses, and 3) catalyze and seed collaborations at the interface of music, brain, and mobile brain-body imaging. The outcome of the summit will be a publication that will outline research priorities.

Music as Medicine: The Science and Clinical Practice
December 14-15, 2023
Virtual
Description: This workshop aimed to highlight accomplishments from the last 6 years in advancing scientific research on music and health, develop a blueprint for the next phase of research, and further build the research community. The workshop was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and jointly organized by NIH, the NEA, the Renée Fleming Foundation, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The workshop was cochaired by Dr. Francis Collins, former NIH director, and Ms. Renée Fleming, a renowned American soprano, both of whom delivered keynote speeches. There were six scientific sessions during the 2-day workshop: (1) Research on the Science of Music; (2) Research on Music Therapy and Music Medicine; (3) Research on Music Education and Health; (4) Future Research Directions; (5) Networks and Capacity-Building of an Integrative Health Research Community; (6) Integration of Music-Based Interventions Into Health Care Systems. Each session featured a short musical performance highlighting the scientific theme, followed by scientific talks and discussions with eminent speakers and panelists to enrich the content and perspectives for general discussions. View archived videos for both days. 

Songs for Hope: A Concert Celebration of the 2023 Surgeon General’s Medallion Awardees for Health
September 18, 2023
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
Desciption: As individuals, throughout our communities, and across the nation, we have had little time or opportunity to address our mental health, grief, and struggles of loneliness and isolation over the last years. In that spirit, the Surgeon General Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy will recognize heroic work to support mental health and well-being during the last years of the pandemic. September 18 in the Concert Hall, he awards the Surgeon General’s Medallion—the highest honor he can present to a civilian—to individuals or organizations who exemplify unusual acts of compassion, innovative mental health efforts, and exceptional leadership in advancing the well-being of their communities. 

U.S. Social Prescribing Student Movement Launch Webinar
March 27, 2023
Description: Are you interested in innovating the healthcare system to address social determinants of health and provide holistic, person-centered care? Join us to learn about the growing national social prescribing student movement that seeks to change the culture of how we approach health.

Research Networks To Promote Studies on Music-Based Interventions: Technical Assistance Webinar
November 30, 2022

Sound Health: Renew/Remix Concert
October 2, 2022 
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
Description: Hosted by Renée Fleming and Dr. Francis Collins, the event featured a roster of world-class artists in performance and conversation with music therapists, researchers, and scientists. 

Sound Health: Renew/Remix
Music-Based Health Interventions: The Path Ahead
October 3, 2022
Kennedy Center Skylight Pavilion
Description: Panel discussion on current evidence and research gaps in the field of music-based interventions, considerations and efforts directed at filling those research gaps, and how this work can inform future reimbursement for care considerations.

Relating Target Engagement to Clinical Benefit: Biomarkers for Brain Disorders of Aging
August 25, 2021

Assessing and Measuring Target Engagement: Mechanistic and Clinical Outcome Measures for Brain Disorders of Aging
June 18, 2021

Laying the Foundation: Defining the Building Blocks of Music-Based Interventions
March 31, 2021
Related Resource: Program Book

Sound Health Network (SHN) Launch Event
January 26, 2021

The REACH Opening Festival: Sound Health: Panel with Renée Fleming, Dr. Charles Limb, and Dr. Francis Collins
September 12, 2019

Promoting Research on Music and Health Technical Assistance Webinar
January 18, 2019

Music and the Mind: Shaping Our Children’s Lives Through Music Engagement
September 7-8, 2018

National Symphony Orchestra (Full Orchestra) at NIH
January 26–27, 2017

National Symphony Orchestra Ensemble at NIH
June 20, 2017

NIH-Kennedy Center Music and the Mind Performance and Workshops at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
June 2–June 3, 2017

NIH Workshop on Music and Heath
January 26–27, 2017