Sandra Schembri, CEO of music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins, has spoken to Headliner about the far-reaching and vital impact its work can have on those with debilitating and life-changing conditions, and why it needs support from the music industry and beyond.
Established in the late 1950s, Nordoff Robbins is the UK’s largest music therapy charity. Its therapists use music to connect with some of the most isolated people in society - working with children and adults affected by life-limiting illness such as dementia, learning disabilities including autism, physical disability and mental health issues. The charity works with over 270 schools, hospitals, hospices and care homes, as well as providing sessions from its centres across the UK.
With no government funding, it is entirely reliant on donations and support from across the music industry, and, indeed, other sectors, to fund its invaluable work. Two of the biggest Nordoff Robbins fundraising events take the form of the annual Silver Clef Awards and the Legends of Football Night.
The Silver Clef Awards are held to recognise and celebrate the talent of long-established and contemporary artists, while raising awareness and funds for the charity’s work. Since 1976, the awards have raised over £11 million for Nordoff Robbins and honoured some of the most iconic names in music. The ceremony also features a now legendary fund raising auction, which this year saw the late George Michael’s personal Bechstein piano sell for £200,000. A host of other items of music memorabilia and tickets for a variety of events and experiences were also sold at the auction, with the event generating a total of £750,000 to help Nordoff Robbins continue its work.
Meanwhile, the Legends of Football event, which takes place this year on October 3 at London’s Grosvenor House, takes a similar form, recognising a footballing icon – this year, England men’s team manager Gareth Southgate – with all proceeds going to the charity. An auction on the night, featuring items of football memorabilia and tickets for matches and various other events, will also see all proceeds poured into Nordoff Robbins’ work.
Headliner sat down for a chat with CEO Schembri to find out more about Nordoff Robbins’ life changing work and how people can access its vital services…
For those unaware, what is Nordoff Robbins and what does it do?
Nordoff Robbins was founded by two gentlemen in the late ‘50s. One was a special education teacher, and one was a fine composer. They met and worked with what were called at the time ‘locked away children’. These were children that society couldn’t reach at the time. And what they found was that music could reach these children in a a way they were surprised by. Over the years they developed this methodology of how you could communicate with someone through music, and that got termed ‘music as therapy’. From that grew a pool of music therapists. We have colleagues in New York, Poland, Italy, Germany, China, Korea, Australia and Taiwan, and they are very much an alumni.
Do you have any examples of how music therapy works in practice?
The term music therapy can sound a bit standoffish, but really it’s all about connection. We work where words fail. Think about how you use music in your own life. You might use it to lift yourself up or get you over a heartbreak or help you to concentrate. We are naturally drawn to music. The first thing we ever hear is our mother’s womb. We are born to pulse, so it is innate in all of us. So, what the musicians who are trained in this particular way do is exquisitely listen to someone who may struggle with their words. That could be due to their mental health, so they are physically capable of speaking, but something is stopping them; or it could be a life limiting illness. Some of the clients we work with have all kinds of learning and physical difficulties where the world isn’t built for them. It excludes them, and what we want to do is include them. The bridge we use to do that is music.
One example is a young kid who had terminal lung cancer and was unable to speak. He was depressed and on the ward with his mum, and both understandably were completely dejected. Then the music therapist comes in and is able to find from the guttural noise the patient was able to make with his throat some kind of connection. And by the end of the session, he was clearly laughing in his own way with his mum, and that makes both of them crack up. We’re not fixing the cancer, but for that 30–40-minute session you are able to give a gift to that mother and son. And then the therapist will try to get out of the way and help the mother and son do that on their own.
Do you find that people require some education on the concept of music therapy?
Yes. It varies from culture to culture. In some cultures, therapy is open and accepted and is welcomed, in others it is a very hard no. So for some, the term music therapy is a big no no. So, when we talk to those cultures, we tend not to use the word therapy as we don’t want anybody to be put off by it. It is a therapeutic intervention but there is a medicalisation of the word therapy that we actively work against. This isn’t about fixing people. What we are doing is trying to help the person holistically.
How do people access music therapy?
We have something called an open access option, so you can go on our website, and it will ask you questions. Depending on the condition you are presenting or where you are, it might be that we aren’t able to help but we will always signpost someone. There is an organisation called the British Association of Music Therapists, and they have a register of all the music therapists across the UK. The challenge we have is that there aren’t enough music therapists to meet the demand. So, one of our missions is to educate the music therapists of the future. We did some analysis a little while back and found it would take us 30 years of education to meet 50% of the current need.
How can people become music therapists?
What we need is people who are musically flexible. There has to be a base level of musicality, but that can be on any instrument. We need someone who understands music, even if they can’t read music. It’s about listening. There is an application and interview process where you meet some of our therapists and some of our clients, but the key word that comes up again and again is flexibility. You have to meet the client where they are and work from there. The course is two years and we have it London, Manchester and Newcastle, and we are looking at where the next one might be. We sense there is need for another one to meet this growing demand.
How is Nordoff Robbins’ work funded?
With great difficulty! It’s donations, donations, donations. We are a charity and get no government funding. We have a model where some of our work is free, some of it is 25-30% charge and some of it is 80% charge. The subsidy depends on people’s ability to pay. We will always provide free open access. We rely on individuals making donations, but our core funding comes from the love of the music industry – we can show them something they love and adore, that they work in, being put to use almost as some kind of superpower. They support us hugely. Without them we’d be a very different organisation. They’ve helped us go from three music therapists in 1974 up to nearly 100 now.
You can find out more about Nordoff Robbins and how to donate here.