Music & Healing Video Series
Reflecting on Music’s Impact
Humans have been using sounds as a way to exist and endure since the start of time. The artists on our Music & Healing Series share their stories of facing illness and personal upheaval to shed light on music’s profound impact.
We invite you to respond to our Music & Healing live events and video series by sharing your own story of healing with music with us.
Videos
Peter Sellars: Mourning through Music (Video)
“It’s not an accident that most of the greatest art comes from the most painful periods in human history,” reflects visionary director Peter Sellars. Internationally celebrated for his groundbreaking interpretations of opera and theater—from the Metropolitan Opera to the Salzburg Festival—Sellars has devoted his career to exploring the profound relationship between art, suffering, and the […]
Choreographer Mark Morris: Contemplating Artistic Legacy
Mark Morris, celebrated as one of the most prolific, influential, and musically profound choreographers of our time, has long been contemplating a deeply personal question: What will happen to his company and his remarkable body of nearly 200 works after his death? In response, he has begun creating new works designed for posthumous premieres, as […]
Kayhan Kalhor on the Healing Power of Music
Kamancheh legend Kayhan Kalhor came to Princeton University Concerts’ Healing with Music series to join journalist Deborah Amos for a conversation about music’s healing role in his life and in the world in February 2025. This film opened the event. In the wake of the Iranian revolution, teenage Kayhan Kalhor left his homeland and family […]
Igor Levit: Pianist & Advocate for Change
Pianist Igor Levit came to Princeton University Concerts’ Healing with Music series to join journalist Deborah Amos for a conversation about how he uses his platform and artistry to respond to global crises including antisemitism and issues of social justice on November 3, 2024. This film, produced by Princeton University Concerts, introduced this event. At […]
Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh & Visual Artist Kevork Mourad: Syria – Art in a Time of Crisis
Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and visual artist Kevork Mourad came to our Healing with Music series to perform and discuss “Home Within,” a work that they created in response to the crisis in Syria, on September 26, 2024. The event began with this video, produced by Princeton University Concerts.
Pianist Jonathan Biss & Author Adam Haslett: Anxiety, Depression, and Music
PUC-fan-favorite pianist Jonathan Biss came to our Healing with Music series alongside Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Adam Haslett for an intimate reflection on anxiety, depression, and music on April 24, 2024. The event began with this video, produced by Princeton University Concerts.
Music, Dance, Parkinson’s: Dance for PD®
“What happens to me when my feet feel like glue and they’re stuck on the floor — I sometimes cannot walk, but I can dance…the music leads me to a place where I am weightless” shares Cyndy, a participant of Dance for PD® (Parkinson’s Disease). Developed by the Mark Morris Dance Group into a model […]
Suleika Jaouad & Jon Batiste: Healing from Cancer through Music
“Oncology wards, more than anywhere else I know, are music-less places,” wrote Suleika Jaouad as part of Life, Interrupted, the Emmy award-winning New York Times column and video series she wrote while hospitalized for leukemia shortly after graduating from Princeton University in 2010. Jon Batiste changed that by bringing his band to visit her oncology […]
Pianist Fred Hersch: Responding to Illness Through Jazz
“A living legend” (The New Yorker) within jazz’s piano pantheon, fifteen-time GRAMMY nominee Fred Hersch was also one of the first openly gay, HIV-positive jazz musicians. Amidst the demands of an internationally celebrated career, he spent several months in an AIDS-related coma in 2008. He made his Princeton University Concerts debut as part of our […]
Cellist Joshua Roman: Living with Long COVID as a Musician
Extraordinary cellist and TED Senior Fellow Joshua Roman—the epitome of health prior to the pandemic—has suffered from long-haul COVID-19 syndrome since January 2021. Even amidst debilitating fatigue, he has since dedicated himself to a vigorous touring schedule with a renewed sense of gratitude and urgency. You can get a taste of this passion watching his […]
