music therapy (1999-2024)

I trained as a music therapist with Nordoff Robbins in London, 1998-2000. I then worked as a practitioner, researcher and educator in the fields of Neurological Rehabilitation, Dementia Care, Community Practice, and Special Education for 25 years. In that time I created over 50 music therapy posts and projects across the UK and Ireland, led the UK’s first national music therapy service in care homes, developed a national care training in musicality, and led the first music therapy doctoral training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I published a monograph and numerous peer-reviewed original articles including a noted paper on music research in the British Medical Journal, and was awarded an MBE for Services to Music Therapy and Care in 2017.

I have been a Research Fellow and Associate with Bath Spa University, the Alzheimer Scotland Centre for Policy and Practice, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; and was the Research Education Framework (REF21) Specialist Advisor on Music Therapy in 2021. I have lectured and educated on music therapy in Japan since 2010, and have been a keynote speaker in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and New York. In 2024 I was an Editor of the British Journal of Music Therapy, and have previously been a Trustee of BAMT. I have supervised five successful PhDs in music therapy, community music, experimental composition, and drama; and have been an active external examiner for several international MA programmes.