Grant For Diverse Music
We are so excited to share that we received a grant from the BCH Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism (DEI/AR) Council for 2024. Our proposal highlighted the importance of providing kids with opportunities for exposure to diverse music experiences and will allow us to bring in three visiting musicians over the next few months!
Why is this so important?
Music is universal. It is a powerful way to reach across cultures, languages, barriers, and to create connections and community.
Seeing new and different cultures fosters growth and understanding of people different from themselves; through music they can also learn to appreciate different sounds, timbres, languages, and genres.
And just as important (if not more so), seeing their own culture represented can provide kids with a voice, a space, validation of their experience, and so much more. Representation matters.
Each visit will include a performance for patients and families and a workshop for our music therapy team. We are excited to learn more about how to incorporate new ideas and more diverse music into our practice. Our first visiting musician will be Nathalia Palis later this month. You can learn more about her here.
So you might be wondering... how do I add more diverse music to my own playlist? (Great question!) As much as I love my music platform's ability to recommend things it knows I'll like, I sometimes find that my own listening has become stagnant. Here some of my favorite ways to explore new music from all over the world:
NPR may not be your first stop for discovering music, but it should be! The Tiny Desk Concert series highlights a wide variety of artists and genres and is where I've found some of my favorites over the years.
Radio Garden shows you a world map and you can hear what people are listening to live on the radio all over the world. Upon exploration in our office, we found that a lot of Italian radio stations were playing American 80s rock...but we did find some new music to us as well :)
WXPN is my favorite Philadelphia radio station. In 2023 they created playlists specific to individual countries to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. There are so many gems on these lists!
If you are into classical music: this Yale database has a ton of ways to find underrepresented composers and classical works.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to comment below with any of your current favorite artists or ways in which you’ve found new and diverse music! And stay tuned for more updates on our grant over the next few months.
