BY JESSIE WANG
When we hear the term ‘classical music’, most of us have an image of a concert hall filled with a quiet audience. An audience where people sit still and quiet, shouldn’t sneeze, and can’t visit the bathroom. An audience that is highly educated, and with tastes that are reflected in their classy wardrobe choices.
But we all know music has so much more to offer. It can support people through life’s challenges, or encourage motivation, or unite people.
And that is exactly what Esther Pavel-Wood had set out to do – to combine music with mental health and play in unconventional concert halls.
For Esther’s charity Mad Music, concert halls are replaced with psychological and social rehabilitation venues, from refuges to halfway houses. Everywhere but your traditional concert hall settings, really.
In this interview, we chat with Esther about her Sydney initiative, and we also hear from Mental Health Carers New South Wales CEO Jonathan Harms about the power of music in the context of mental illness.
Esther, what made you want to start Mad Music?
I started Mad Music because I had been working in the mental health sector for a while, and I felt like we needed some kind of annual event or celebration for everybody to attend. I wanted to create something that reflected not just the adversity – the obstacles and the pain that people with a lived experience of mental illness go through – but also capture the joy, the hope, and beauty that is an essential part of any recovery journey.
Classical music was music I had been familiar with as a teenager, and I had just got back into listening to it and had started playing my violin again, so it made sense to put the two things together. It also worked well because classical music and mental illness have a long-recognised and established relationship. And I loved the idea of an outdoors event, easily accessible to people experiencing mental illness, with a full symphony orchestra, surrounded by people of all ages and backgrounds, sitting on blankets or wandering around, who might never have heard this sort of music before.
At first, I thought I could pitch the idea of this huge music festival to an existing mental health charity. But after doing some research, I realised no-one was really doing that sort of thing – not in Australia, or overseas. So I created a charity to do it instead.
What does a concert with Mad Music look like?
At its core, a Mad Music concert is an outdoors festival for mental wellness, with music to draw people in, and mental health promotion messages and services interwoven informally throughout the venue (mental illness, housing, drugs and alcohol addiction, physical health, smoking, domestic violence, etc.). A Mad Music festival would be a whole of health forum that people actually want to go to.
Music therapy is often seen as a way to help patients in hospitals or aged care settings. So why combine music and mental health outside these traditional therapy zones?
Music has so much to offer. It has the potential to emotionally support people through moments of hardship, and there is strong scientific evidence to support the fact that certain types of music elevate mood and motivation.
Music can also empower, unite, and make people feel good by creating feelings of comfort and relaxation; and relieving stress and anxiety by reducing cortisol levels in the body. And when you get a whole group of people listening to music together, it can generate a shared feeling of connection and empathy. Studies show that music provides a tangible, audible and visceral way for us to feel in sync with others. So, playing beautiful music to a group of people can have a really profound impact by breaking down barriers between listeners, and bringing people from different backgrounds, ages and gender, closer together in a way that makes everyone feel really good.
How do you feel music affects the carers in the lives of those who may be experiencing clinical or non-clinical mental illnesses?
This response was given by Mental Health Carers New South Wales CEO Jonathan Harms.
Mental health carers are often very anxious and depressed as a result of their efforts to support their loved ones. Carers need to take care of their own wellbeing, mentally and physically in order to be able to be the best support and advocate they can for their loved ones. Music can be a big part of a carers’ self-care. Many are able to find release from tension and stress by listening to music and remembering the good things about life. In a time-poor lifestyle such as many carers must adopt, music is an option which does not necessarily prevent carers from continuing their work.
Music has always been very important to my family and I know that my mother finds playing and listening to music a great way to recharge her batteries so that she can be an effective support for all family members when they require it. It can transport carers for a short time to a better place in their minds and enhance their experience of the life they lead. This is one of the reasons we are so happy to support [the Mad Music] project. ‘For what, we ask, is life, without a touch of poetry [and music] in it?’ – a quote from The Pirates of Penzance, one of my family’s favourites.
How can music be used to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health?
Mad Music tries to shine a brighter and more optimistic light on mental health, right down to the composers we choose and the musicians we work with. Rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of mental illness, we emphasise the connection, hope, and beauty that should be part of recovery. Composers like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Brahms, and Schumann are just some of the classical composers who have inspired the world with music created during periods of mental illness. Some scholars even argue that music creativity is an adaptive response to these conditions.
Music does not judge. It should not be restricted by age, race, money, or mental health – it can be felt and enjoyed by everyone. By taking music out of the concert hall and into outdoor accessible places, and focusing on including vulnerable people, we are already on the path towards reducing stigma.
Mad Music provides opportunities for people who have experience of mental illness and people who don’t have that experience to listen to the same music, together, in a relaxed setting. When people listen to music together, that creates common experience; and after, connection and empathy.
Everyone has the right to mental wellness. I would love for beautiful music to be accessible to everyone with mental illness – in fact, accessible to everyone, full stop.
Where do you see the future of music and mental health?
Mad Music takes music out of concert halls and into the streets, creating vibrant, inclusive communities. There are so many people who love the music we are playing, even though they have never heard it before. And who would never set foot in a concert hall. Either they can’t afford the ticket price, or maybe they don’t feel comfortable surrounded by such formality. Or maybe they can’t find a babysitter! Or maybe they have never even heard of classical music, or concert halls.
Even though I am familiar with classical music and I love it, I wouldn’t attend a concert in a concert hall format. I find it stifling and I get anxious because I can’t move, or sneeze or go to the bathroom. I believe there is a real opportunity to create new audiences for classical music by presenting it in different settings and contexts, and also by linking the music to a larger cause like mental health.
Mad Music has teamed up with the City of Sydney for Mental Health Month. Tell us what will be happening.
Mad Music ambassador and concert violinist Filip Pogady will be travelling to Sydney to deliver the In Harmony festival, bringing classical music to people with a lived experience of mental illness and homelessness. The program is funded through City of Sydney and supported by Mental Health Carers New South Wales. Over four days, we will be visiting five service providers – from day refuges and psych units to halfway houses and psycho-social rehabilitation centres – and performing for their service users in addition to performing for people experiencing homelessness at multiple outdoors locations.
Basically, we are playing to as many people with a lived experience of mental illness as possible. Along the way, we will be filming the events and looking at the effect that classical music has on people who have never heard it before.
What are your plans for Mad Music’s future?
In 2018, Mad Music is running a mini-festival, or pilot, focusing on people with mental illness and homelessness, in a program tailored for City of Sydney’s vulnerable populations. Next year, we’d like to try and do the same thing for the City of Sydney in a larger festival format with a full symphony orchestra. Ideally, we would like to use that model […] so that families could picnic next to people accessing services for mental illness in a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment; without stigma or judgement.
The Mad Music model can be tailored to any setting, so in the future, there is potential to theme Mad Music festivals in order to target other vulnerable populations. For example, music festivals are a fantastic way to target rural or remote communities, newly arrived immigrants, or even post-natal depression, using a ‘mums and bubs’ format. We could use the same model but tweak the music, and how we present it.
Possibilities are endless.
The first Mad Music event will take place from September 24-28 at Callan Park Hospital for the Insane (pictured). Find out more on the Mad Music website.
Disclaimer: This story does not offer formal mental health advice. Please visit headspace for support.
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