[In Memory of Sten Roer Andersen (1948-2013)]

Sten Roer: An Anachronistic Pioneer

By Ken Aigen

Most music therapists probably never met Sten Roer; in fact, most of you have probably never even heard of him and may be wondering why his passing in December of 2012 warrants recognition in Voices. In his own unique way, Sten was an important person in music therapy, in spite of his relative anonymity, and I would like to share a few thoughts on why I think this is so.

Sten was a pioneer in music therapy. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, before we had any theoretical writings supporting the area of practice we now call “community music therapy,” Sten had organized a clinical music therapy program for individuals with mental illness around the idea of creating rock and jazz bands and engaging in public performances. This type of clinical service clashed with central aspects of conventional approaches to music therapy: it included a product orientation in the goal of crafting a credible performance; it took music therapy out of the private, confidential space of the institution into the broader community where client anonymity was neither possible nor desirable; it involved a new type of role for therapists and clients as co-performers. Although many of these practices have more adherents in the contemporary world of music therapy, they are still controversial in some quarters.

Sten came to these practices guided solely by what was good for his clients, even if this meant coming into conflict with existing ethics and theories regarding the practice of music therapy. Although he was practicing more than a decade before the first contemporary publications on community music therapy, he was the embodiment of its central notion as articulated by Mercédès Pavlicevic and Gary Ansdell (2004). He knew when to “throw theoretical concerns to the wind when appropriate, to follow the needs of people and circumstances, asking not ‘what is music therapy?’ and ‘what is a music therapist’, but ‘what do I need to do here, now?’” In this way, Sten “dared to follow where people and music lead” (p. 30).

And yet Sten was as much an anachronism as he was a pioneer. When I first met him in the early 1990s, Sten had no formal music therapy degree and consequently was not recognized as a legitimate music therapist in his home country of Denmark. While acceptance of self-taught music therapists was an essential developmental step for music therapy from the 1950s through the 1980s, by the mid-1990s there were a sufficient number of training programs throughout the world such that the presence of autodidacts claiming professional legitimacy was no longer accepted. Fortunately for Sten, his first professional visit to the USA was prior to the unification of American Association of Music Therapy (AAMT) and the National Association for Music Therapy (NAMT) into one organization, the current American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). AAMT possessed an alternate route to music therapy certification that involved the demonstration of clinical skills and sufficient knowledge in the field through a rigorous examination by a certification committee. Sten was able to earn his certification in this way, something that I know gave him great pride, even as it caused some consternation in his home country.

Sten had a large heart—på Dansk, et stort hjerte—and was full of life and vitality. He also loved rock and roll in all its manifestations and was committed to bringing its life affirming energy to the people most in need of it: his clients. I remember presiding for Sten at a conference presentation where he was showing some video recordings of his band Chok Rock in performance. Of utmost concern to Sten was the quality of the sound reproduction in the room. Although this was an early morning presentation slot, Sten wanted the room to rock! When the music began and I had it set for level suitable for 9 AM, all I could see was Sten frantically gesturing to me from the podium to turn it up! Only in this way would his audience feel the power of rock and roll and truly understand its appeal and its ability to energize, qualities that explained its clinical value.

Sten was unpredictable and I became accustomed to receiving phone calls from him at odd times and at irregular intervals. We might not talk for six months, or a few years, and then early in the morning the phone would ring, the caller ID would indicate to me a call from Denmark, and I knew it would be Sten on the line, calling to see how I was and to resume our ongoing conversation that might have its last installment a year or more earlier. However, these calls never bothered me—in his own way, Sten was reliably unpredictable, it was part of who he was and it endeared him to me.

You’ll notice that the various contributors to this section remembering Sten are all from the New York City area. While Sten may have had friends in other parts of the USA as well as in other parts of the world, and while he certainly was very proud Dane (as most Danes are!), Sten really was a New Yorker at heart. His energy matched the energy of the city and he seemed at home here. Plus, he was an original that fit no easy mold as a person or as a music therapist. He was free to be who he wanted to be professionally and have what he had to offer recognized by his peers without having to alter it to conform to others’ notions of what music therapy should be.

When I first wrote to the editors of Voices to request the opportunity to honor Sten Roer with some published recollections by his friends, Brynjulf Stige conveyed the decision to grant this permission and ended his e-mail to me saying, “Sten was a good man.” Brynjulf was right—Sten was a good man with energy, heart, and vitality; his family, his clients, and the profession of music therapy will be poorer for his loss.

PS: On behalf of all of Sten’s friends who contributed to this section, I would like to thank the editors of Voices—Cheryl Dileo, Carolyn Kenny, Brynjulf Stige—for allowing us this opportunity to honor our dear friend, Sten Roer.

References

Pavlicevic, M. & Ansdell, G. (2004). Introduction: "The Ripple Effect." In M. Pavlicevic & G. Ansdell (Eds.), Community music therapy (pp. 15-31). London: Jessica Kingsley.