The Culture of Music Therapy

By Carolyn Kenny

As we present this latest issue of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, I pause to appreciate the rich history, tradition, and development we have experienced over the last thirty years in our professional life. In this issue you will see articles that integrate the latest scientific discoveries into our Music Therapy practice (Costa & Negreiros-Vianna, Miller). You will see the description of one of our latest innovative graduate Music Therapy programs (Curtis). Our new section of "Research Voices" offers articles on the latest developments in application of research strategies to Music Therapy practice (Hwang). And "story" still holds a place of honor and continuity in our culture as we read about a Music Therapist's selections from her journal while working with a young girl in the end-of-life (Rigney).

The interview section of this issue contains the Zagreb Symposiums and an interview with Stefano Navone, a musician and music therapist from Italy. Barbara Wheeler is continuing her work on the history of the World Music Therapy Congresses. Memories and thoughts from the Washington congress in 1999 are collected and will be presented in our next issue.

Perhaps the most dramatic indicator of our development over time is the huge section honoring Professor Tony Wigram, who passed away in June 2011. In this section there are thirteen articles that honor this great contributor to our field. Professor Wigram was a man who dedicated himself to expanding both the educational and discursive aspects of our work. He was a vital, enthusiastic, intelligent friend, educator, researcher, advocate for Music Therapy, and so many other things. He was a husband, father, elegant host, pioneer, and overall activist for all of the good things. In this section, you will have an opportunity to learn more about the details of his life and his many contributions through the voices of those who knew him well. We mourn his passing. Simultaneously, we celebrate the tremendous influence he has had over these last twenty years and more. His influence will be with us for a long time, not only in the many students his has educated, but also in the institutions he has shaped, and the research he has done. This section contains two texts from Tony himself – one titled "An Englishman in Denmark" and a Power Point presentation at the European Music Therapy Congress in Cadiz, Spain in may 2010, that was to be his last.

What does it take to make a culture? It takes stories about our shared experiences. I know that this issue will not disappoint. However, as Edward Hall, one of the great commentators on culture, reminds us, culture is a vast network of fragments that are bound together with an implied reality that we can never really name. How do all of the pieces fit together? Maybe this is something that we can only "feel". Our culture is growing by leaps and bounds. There are more and more "fragments". In fact, we might even see our development and growing exponentially. And Voices is a good place to get the details, to read about each and every country, each and every new approach to Music Therapy, each and every new training and education, each and every story. Yet all of these fragments compose a whole. We are living and leaving a rich cultural history and tradition for the next generations to experience the sense of "belonging" that only culture can provide. Enjoy!