Healthcare performances

Learning to communicate with an audience is an essential part of becoming a professional musician. Working with patients whose circumstances restrict or deny access to live music gives the musician an opportunity to develop these skills and might have a profound impact on their artistic awareness, musical interaction, reflection and development.

This artistic practice – a direct and intimate face-to-face form of communication requires presence, empathy and the ability to improvise and change the music repertoire, musical expression and intensity along the way. The patient’s body language and reactions must be a catalyst for the music experience, together with artistic focus and no compromise on/maintenance of high professional musical nerve, which is a very demanding task for the musician, and a valuable artistic experience that can be used and transformed into traditional concerted contexts. “… It requires an open mind, a watchful eye, a listening ear” – guideline to musicians in the English organization Music in Hospitals (https://mihc.org.uk).

This project addresses the question on how professional artistic practice can develop in the meeting with the intensive care patient.
What are the underlying mechanisms behind this kind of artistic practice and to what extent will it deepen and create new meaning of musicianship on:

• Artistic awareness

• Empathy and sensitivity

• Flexibility

• Musical interaction and reflection

• Collaboration

• Risk-taking

• Performance – ”catching the moment”

How can HEI’s in the Arts develop the artist’s role in society as a ressource for change and improvement?