[Editorial]

Collaborations and a Goodbye

By Carolyn Kenny

Welcome to the July 1, 2013 issue of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy!

A major theme in the collection of articles in this issue is “collaboration”. You will read about the intergenerational blending of patients in music therapy groups in a psychiatric setting; collaborative seminars conducted by an international group of music therapists on music therapy with children and adolescents; collaboration between institutions that formalize the performance of music with music therapy students; more international collaborations that focus on how music therapists from Australia encourage sustainability in Bangladesh; a collaboration between a child with profound developmental delays, a music therapist, a music therapy assistant, and the child’s mother; and an article documenting German Music Therapy formal education and research programs – another example of collaborative work.

As well, we have an excellent article that investigates the teaching of voice, an important component in so many music therapy education programs. An article from Japan discusses critical issues in Evidence-based Practice for music therapy.

We are pleased to once again include articles from diverse perspectives and different countries. In this issue, we have one article in dual languages – English and Japanese. Dual language submissions always make us happy!

All of the articles provide a terrific springboard for the Voices discussion area. So we hope that you will study them and offer your responses in our Discussion Section. (If you register and log in to you Voices account you can add your comments just below each article).

I want to share a bit of sad news, too. In June we lost another important Music Therapy pioneer. Professor Dr. h.c. Johannes Th. Eschen passed away peacefully on June 18, two days before his 85th birthday. Johannes was a Professor of Music Therapy and founding Director of the Institut fr Musiktherapie der Hochschule fr Musik und Theater, Hamburg, Germany. He worked as a music therapist at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover and the Gemeinschaftskrankenhous Herdecke and in private practice. He was one of the founding members of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Musiktherapie, of which he served as Chairman from 1977 to 1985, President 1985-6 and Honorary Chairman since 1990. In 1998 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of the Hochschule fr Music und Theater, Hamburg. Professor Eschen was a very influential member of the Music Therapy community internationally. In 2002, Jessica Kingsley Publishers produced his edited volume titled Analytical Music Therapy, which serves as the primary training text for Analytical Music Therapy around the world. In my last communication with him, we corresponded about the 1982 New York University Symposium, Music in the Life of Man (Barcelona Publishing will produce an historical perspective on this Symposium next year co-edited by Michele Forinash and myself). I had asked him to send me some memories about the symposium and to write something about what endured after the 1982 gathering. Here are his exact words, written on December 12, 2012:

Dear Carolyn,

thank you for your interesting invitation!

1. This Symposium was the best I have ever been to: as every participant had to send before his or her text, the intensity of the meetings was utmost impressive. No other Symposium reached the depth of exchange and insight into work and personality of colleagues, and for me it opened up new understanding of many MT-approaches.
 Also it was very helpful, to get every morning the "reports" of the other group-meetings.

2. For me the following relationships are still today vivid and surprising stable - again much more lively, than from other Symposia. And I am for example very grateful for the intensity of contacts e.g. to Clive, Ken Aigen, and Barbara Hesser.
And rather funny: the paper, I had written for this Symposium I had to quote partially for many other tasks!

Dear Carolyn: I am grateful for your publication-plan!

With many friendly greetings ever yours,
Johannes

This communication really reflects the dedicated collaborative engagement and the deep sense of collegiality and friendship of this man. Johannes was an extraordinarily dedicated and kind member of our Music Therapy community and will be missed by many. If you would like to write some memories, thoughts, and feelings about this amazing man, you can do this on our Voices Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/voicesmt/

Turning back to Voices news. . . there will be some big changes in Voices in August. Cheryl Dileo and I will be stepping down as Co-editors-in-Chief. I began my Voices work in 1999 at the World Congress of Music Therapy in Washington, D.C. Voices began as a small group of international music therapy leaders discussed the need for such a journal. After our group meeting, Brynjulf and I made a commitment to start just such a journal as an open access forum. The first issue was published in 2001. Cheryl joined our staff for a three-year period in 2010 to help initiate the special Research genre in the forum.

It has been a wonderful 14 years! I have made many international friends through my Voices work. I enjoyed a rich collaboration with Brynjulf and Rune Rolvsjord, our Managing Editor. During my times in Bergen to work on our Voices initiatives, we had great discussions, and some very special dinners and social gatherings at which there was plenty of laughter and lots of good times!

Now it is time for some new leadership for Voices. I am happy to tell you that Katrina Skewes McFerran (Australia) and Susan Hadley (USA) will be the new Co-editors-in Chief for Voices. This will be officially announced in August at the European Music Therapy Conference in Oslo! Brynjulf will continue to work as a Co-editor-in-Chief from Bergen. And Rune will continue on as Managing Editor. Kat and Sue have a tremendous amount of experience in music therapy practice, research, publication, and international collaboration. Their practice and their writings and research clearly reflect the well-established mission and values of the Voices collaboration. They will continue this important tradition, but will also bring a new and refreshing face to the forum. Congratulations to you, Kat and Sue!

I extend my gratitude to so many of my editorial colleagues and to the many authors who have offered texts to Voices over these years. It has been fulfilling, rewarding, and such a pleasure working with you. I am a bit sad to leave my formal role with Voices. But I will continue to work from the sidelines reviewing articles and contributing to the Discussion section of the forum. Maybe now I can even submit an article occasionally! So it’s not really “goodbye”.