Healing Arts is a global campaign by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization
Healing Arts is a global campaign by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization
Friday 7 August | 6PM Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio, David Geffen Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, NY 10023
Bringing together artists, clinicians, and scholars, this conversation traces the enduring relationship between music and mental health, from Schumann’s era to contemporary practice.
How has music helped us give voice to emotional complexity and support mental health across time? Robert Schumann’s music gave form to inner conflict, vulnerability, and emotional intensity—offering a powerful example of how creative expression can hold psychological intricacy when words fall short. Today, growing evidence shows that engagement with music and the arts can support emotional regulation, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and foster connection, meaning, and hope amidst adversity. Bringing together artists, clinicians, and scholars, this conversation traces the enduring relationship between music and mental health, from Schumann’s era to contemporary practice. Together, speakers invite audiences to consider how music continues to help us listen more closely to the mind, deepen empathy, and create spaces for reflection and healing.
This event will begin with members of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center playing a selection from Robert Schumann's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor.
Dr. Nisha Sajnani, curator and moderator - Professor and Director of the NYU Steinhardt Graduate Program in Drama Therapy, Founding Director of the Arts & Health @ NYU, and Co-Director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, established in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
Jonathon Heyward, panelist - Renée and Robert Belfer Music & Artistic Director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Interim Artistic Director of Chineke!
Richard Kogan, MD, panelist - Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, Artistic Director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program, and Co-Director of Weill Cornell's Human Sexuality Program. Richard is renowned for his concert/lectures that explore the role of music in healing and the influence of psychological factors and psychiatric and medical illness on the creative output of the great composers.
Dr. Anna Palumbo, panelist - Research Scientist and Board Certified Music Therapist, director of the research program at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, and adjunct faculty member in the New York University Departments of Psychology and Music Therapy.
