Marianne Rizkallah is the Director and Head Music Therapist at North London Music Therapy, 'Music Therapy Outreach and Enterprise Tutor' for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and the Vice Chair of the British Association for Music Therapy.

Founded in 2018, North London Music Therapy provides music therapy for anyone, of any age, with a mental health condition such as stress, anxiety or depression. NLMT provides music therapy for individuals and groups, designs and delivers workshops for the corporate market, and provides further training and CPD for qualified and trainee music therapists. NLMT specialises in long-term work, and believes that therapy should be offered for as long as someone feels they need it, running counter to the prevailing therapy model in the UK.

As a music therapist, Marianne has worked with clients aged from 1 to 100, with conditions as varied as psychosis, autism, learning disabilities and dementia. For NLMT, she works with clients with anxiety.

Marianne is also a professional singer and vocal coach, and recently founded her own choir, the Nuestra Singers.

In this interview, Marianne talks about the experience of drawing up lockdown guidelines for BAMT, about the responses of NLMT to COVID-19 and how her psychotherapeutic stance has influenced her music therapy practice in this time.

Website: www.northlondonmusictherapy.com

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