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Music Therapy in New Zealand

by voices | Sat, 03/31/2007 - 23:00

Introduction

Country of the Month last gave a spotlight to New Zealand in February 2003, and in that article the history and emergence of our professional practice in music therapy was described, and some key people and particular themes in the process were identified (Croxson 2003). Four years on, we are beginning to reap the rewards of the huge efforts of our energetic pioneers in the field and some exciting developments are in process. However, very sadly, recent months marked the loss of two of our best-known pioneer music therapists in New Zealand, Joan Stevens and Mary Brooks, who died in the first six months of last year. So in 2007, we hold together in our minds as a music therapy community both our respect and gratitude for the past contribution of such friends as Joan and Mary and our appreciation of current and future growth.

In a small country, areas of interest in music therapy intertwine and overlap. This is a strength for New Zealanders involved in our field, and three short cameos can illustrate this linking. First there is a new flourishing Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre in Auckland, a multi-cultural city with the largest population base in the country. Secondly, people are always at the heart of new movements, and philanthropy often underpins new and creative developments; Sir Roy McKenzie and the various charitable trusts which he founded have been central to all major developments in the music therapy field here. Thirdly, recognition and status for a newly recognised discipline requires a training course of quality and maturity. The Master of Music Therapy course based in our capital city, Wellington, has its first graduates out in the workplace, and the inflow of students is exciting.

Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre, Auckland

A mother's dedication towards finding communication pathways for her daughter who had severe cerebral palsy led to the establishment of the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre now situated in the heart of Auckland city. Hinewehi Mohi is a well-known singer and her daughter Hineraukatauri was the inspiration for friends from the entertainment industry to observe and rejoice with Hinewehi that this "new" intervention was effective. So they did what people in the pop world do best; they hosted successful and glamorous dinner-show fund raising occasions. Hinewehi had stumbled across music therapy in London in 1999 while promoting a CD, and she was enthralled by the rapport which staff at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre made with Hineraukatauri. Coming back to the Southern Hemisphere she made the contacts, husband George did the business plans, hearts were touched and wallets were opened to make the Centre a reality. A very small donation from the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy happened to be the first grant received by the newly established Centre Trust, and then came the various arms of event fundraising and philanthropic sources. And a major donor from that latter field was Sir Roy McKenzie, about whom you will hear more later in this article.

Today the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre (RMTC) has as Director, Yid-Ee Goh, from New Zealand, ex-leader of the Wellington Sinfonia Orchestra, who went to London to take his Master of Music Therapy at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre. Next on the staff as Head of Clinical Services came Claire Molyneux, a graduate from the Master of Music Therapy Programme at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. A third full-time therapist from the post-graduate music therapy programme at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Marie Bagley, has just been appointed and Alison Cooper, a new graduate from the New Zealand Master of Music Therapy course works two days a week for the Centre. Altogether this busy team currently sees 67 children a week; since the Centre opened in 2004, 85 children have had music therapy at the RMTC and the future looks very active indeed.

The New Zealand Society for Music Therapy rejoices with the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre in its rapid and solidly professional progress, and thanks all the people involved with it for their commitment to the development of music therapy. That has helped awareness from the general public, and acceptance grows in official and business circles. Since January 2005, distance students from the Music Therapy Programme in Wellington have become involved in placement work and research at the Centre and have received supervisory support from the clinical staff there - and so the overlaps continue.

Sir Roy McKenzie, Music Therapy Friend and Philanthropist

Sir Roy McKenzie needed no affirmation of the value of music therapy to become closely involved; every major project and new venture undertaken in music therapy in New Zealand owes its inception and establishment to Sir Roy's patronage and purse. This remarkable man was captain of the first New Zealand Olympic ski team, when skis were "wooden slats that you had to carry up the slopes" as he told us a few years ago at his eightieth birthday party. He was in Canada and the United Kingdom in World War II in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and on board ship post-war returning to the UK he met his future wife Shirley. The McKenzie patronage has founded hospices, looked at bi-cultural and multicultural issues, established Maori theatre, helped a wide range of social need projects, and been particularly interested in all aspects of education, especially where there is evidence of special need.

When Sir Roy first saw music therapy in action he was convinced this intervention was important. Major projects facilitated through the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy include five overseas scholarships to recognised training courses to provide a nucleus of working professionals, funding to bring overseas tutors here, a special Hospice Fund to trail-blaze music therapy in that environment, establishment of the new tertiary course in Wellington and the foundation of annual McKenzie Scholarships for course participants and for doctoral studies for course graduates. Following in the footsteps of the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre he has given dedicated funding and allowed naming rights for a future McKenzie Music Therapy Centre in Wellington, hopefully a pilot for centres in other geographic areas. Each Centre can develop according to local socio-economic and cultural community requirements, and each place can be the base for work studios and meeting-places for music therapy practitioners. Sir Roy has been the guardian angel for music therapy in New Zealand.

Master of Music Therapy Programme at 'NZSM'

The Master of Music Therapy Programme referred to is now a thriving and robust identity in Wellington and its home is within the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM), formed recently by the merger of the music departments of Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington. Director of the Programme is Associate Professor Sarah Hoskyns, erstwhile Director for 13 years of the music therapy course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She followed closely on the heels of Dr Robert Krout, the first Director, who dealt well with the welter of protocols and processes that come with the establishment of a new course in a new discipline at a university. When Robert returned to the United States, the course was continued and developed in the New Zealand idiom by Daphne Rickson. She trained in the Accreditation programme set up by the NZSMT, then did a Master in Health Science, then the Masters of Music Therapy in the new course and now is well on the way towards her PhD looking at music therapy in the special education sector. It was delightful to welcome Sarah to the affirmed Director position; she was known to several therapists here, and she too brought a research-based focus into our consciousness.

Sarah sees the development of a broad base of clinical practice and a strong research foundation for the discipline as being fundamental remits of the Master of Music Therapy Programme. It was noted in the last New Zealand Country of the Month that 'the base of research publication needs to widen' and that the expectation was that the programme would provide a 'rich seed bed' for such activity (Croxson 2003). So it has been! As current President of the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy, I am delighted to report that student clinical practice and research have developed in the past three years within an exciting variety of settings. These include main stream and special schools at primary and secondary level, a deaf education centre, two visual resource units in Wellington and Auckland, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, adolescent and adult psychiatric services, a Rudolf Steiner school, music therapy within the play specialist service on two paediatric wards in Wellington and Auckland, child development centres, a centre for adults with intellectual handicap, a number of rest homes and hospital units for the elderly, a specialist centre for people with Huntington's Disease, and two specialist therapy centres for a professional therapeutic team and for music therapy in Christchurch and Auckland respectively.

Masters level research has been generated at many of these settings and graduates of the academic year ending January/February 06 submitted a fascinating range of theses, studying music therapy in hospice care, the assessment of young learners with blindness and low vision, multi-disciplinary team practice in intellectual disability and forensic psychiatry, and on particular topics such as 'meaningful moments', bridging gaps in cultural understanding, working with rhythm for children with specific developmental challenges, and ideas of inclusion and exclusion in the treatment of autism. Graduates are beginning to find opportunities and confidence to join the established music therapy and clinical communities, to present at conferences and to write for journals. Established music therapy practitioners welcome the excitement and energy of this input and many have assisted in the students' development, supporting and supervising, offering observation opportunities, marking assignments and being encouraging colleagues.

A final thought and link from 2003 to now, is the ongoing importance and consideration music therapy in New Zealand needs to give to working with our cultural heritage, and to embracing the health care and musical practices of the Maori and Pacific Island peoples. We have greatly valued the thoughtful work of Millicent McIvor, music therapist and GIM practitioner from Auckland, who has raised awareness through her practice, supervision and writing in this area, (e.g. McIvor 1988) and are delighted that two trainees of Samoan and Maori families respectively have been working through the Master of Music Therapy Programme. We look forward in the future to continuing to develop a culturally competent and dynamic music therapy community that includes the voices of our young Maori and Pacific Island clinicians and values the richness and diversity of our heritage.

Links

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Yid-Ee Goh and Sarah Hoskyns for recent information on the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre and on the NZSM Master of Music Therapy Programme and to Sir Roy McKenzie for his unstinting interest in, and support of the music therapy profession in New Zealand.

References

Croxson, Morva (2003). Music Therapy in New Zealand (online). Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved March 28, 2007 from http://testvoices.uib.no/?q=country/monthnewzealand_february2003

McIvor, M. (1988). New directions inspired by the old: a pakeha looks at Maori chant. Annual Journal of the New Zealand Society for Music Therapy. 2-9.

How to cite this page

Croxson, Morva (2007). Music Therapy in New Zealand. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=country/monthnewzealand_april2007