What a fantastic week this was! We wish that more of you could have joined in. We had an inspirational time that would only have been better if we had been able to welcome even more old and new friends to Ogden! Attendees traveled from as far as Japan and Austria, and so many places in between.

Thursday June 2, the first Healing At The Speed Of Sound workshop kicked off five days of events with a bang. Don Campbell and Alex Doman led participants on an exploratory journey through a few of the healing benefits of music, demonstrating simple things that we can do for ourselves every day. In case you didn’t get to read the article that ran in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, you can still do so here.

We were very pleased to welcome providers to an update at ABT headquarters the same day. As ever, when our provider family gathers, there is so much information to be shared, there is never enough time.  It was, as always, wonderful to welcome old friends as well as newer providers. This event was held prior to an Open House hosted by ABT that was open to providers, families and conference attendees, as well as to the community at large. We shared great food, live music and conversations.

The following day the Interdisciplinary Society for Quantitative Research in Music and Medicine held its inaugural conference at Weber State University.  The conference which was sponsored in part by ABT was devoted to the dissemination of new, unpublished research relating to the field of music and medicine. Scholars and researchers pursuing the studies on the effects of music on any form of health-related topics of the human being were invited to submit their proposals, and the agenda was quite varied in content including several live music performances.

The keynote speaker was Mark Jude Tramo, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Tramo is Director of The Institute for Music & Brain Science, a founding member of its Executive Board, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Attending Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. An awardee of the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders, National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience, National Organization for Hearing Research, and other foundations, Dr. Tramo has conducted original research on the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of music perception and cognition for over 20 years.

Other presenters that would most likely be known to ABT friends were Vera Brandes, Don Campbell, Sheila Allen, Donna Kelly and Alex Doman.

Next year’s conference will take place at the University of Georgia in late July.  We will again sponsor and participate, and will keep you up to date on details as they become available.