Alexia Quin is the director of Music as Therapy International, a charity which she founded in 1995 and which seeks to embed music into the care and education of vulnerable people worldwide. Alexia trained at Roehampton in the late 1990s and worked as a music therapist in the NHS for 15 years. In 2017 she was awarded the WFMT Advocate of Music Therapy Award and in 2018 she was a member of the Commission which examined the role of music within the care and treatment of people living with dementia.

Luke talked to Alexia about the genesis of the charity, which she founded before training as a music therapist. They discuss how training affected her attitude to the work of the charity, and vice versa, and talk in much detail about the many projects that have happened since, and are continuing to be developed at the moment, despite the challenges of the pandemic.

After the tumultuous last year, many schools are beginning to think how they might enhance the mechanisms they have to provide universal support to students with respect to mental health and well-being. If there are any music therapists out there who want to consider their role contributing to this in schools known to them and/or how they identify and share relevant skills, Alexia would love to hear from them.

Anderson, M.B., Brown, D. and Jean, I. (2012) Time To Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid. CDA Collaborative Learning Projects.

Cottam, H. (2018) Radical Help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionalise the welfare state. London: Virago Press.

Quin, A. (2017) Bringing it all back home. Unpublished paper. Japan: World Congress of Music Therapy.

Sen, A. (2001). Development as freedom. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.

www.musicastherapy.org

https://www.facebook.com/musicastherapy

www.interactivemusicmaking.org

"You look a little shy: let me introduce you to that leg of mutton," said the Red Queen. "Alice --Mutton: Mutton --Alice." The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice, and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.

"May I give you a slice?" she said...

"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly: "it isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!" And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.

"I won't be introduced to the pudding, please," Alice said rather hastily, "or we shall get no dinner at all." [Through the Looking-Glass, Norton Critical Edition, 200]