Music Therapy: “Beauty, Science and Passion”

In this episode Jo Gibson and Sophie Hope continue their thread about the Performance and Communication Skills course at Guildhall.
Echoes and the Unsaid 
EPISODE 08 | SEPTEMBER 25 | 2026 
HOSTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
 
COMMENTARY 
Jo and Sophie talk to Saville Kushner, who evaluated the course in the 1980s, Peter Weigold the artistic director and Sean Gregory as a former student on the programme (and now Vice Principal and Director of Innovation, Engagement & Lifelong Learning at Guildhall), about their reflections on PCS.
We learn more about Peter Weigold’s methodology and his approach to cross genre improvising and how he operates in the space between directive and collective approaches.
Saville Kushner gives us examples of his experience of visiting sessions and of talking to students on the course in the 1980s and how formative that was to his understanding of process and improvisation in education and training programmes.
Sean brings in his memories of studying on the course, working as an ensemble and the legacy of the PCS programme on Guildhall today.

We continue our exploration of social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s-2020s. 
In this episode we hear from three alumni of the Performance and Communication Skills course. 
Echoes and the Unsaid 
EPISODE 08 | AUGUST 28 | 2026 
HOSTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
 
COMMENTARY 
Sara Lee took the course in its first year, 1984, and recalls the formative placement she went on at Wormwood Scrubs prison, describing a defining moment when they played a piece of music written by one of the inmates.
Paul Griffiths and Tim Steiner joined the course in 1987. Paul had been at Community Music  and participated in John Stevens' Search and Reflect workshops, and Tim had been studying music at the University of Sussex with Peter Wiegold, the artistic director of PCS. 
The group reflect on their experiences of the course, with Tim and Peter discussing the disconnect between the experimental work they were doing at Guildhall and the work they were sent to do in schools and youth clubs, which they didn't find very inspiring. They recall how the PCS course was looked down on by other departments at Guildhall, and was unofficially referred to as "Piss, Crap and Shit." 
They discuss the extent to which attitudes have changed, and how more needs to be done to raise the profile of the kind of work being done by musicians in society.  They discuss how this is about artists making experimental work in different contexts, collaboratively with others, rather than facilitating other people’s music.
 
REFERENCES
Sara Lee https://irenetaylortrust.com/what-we-do/meet-the-team/office-staff-and-project-team/
Tim Steiner http://www.timsteiner.co.uk/
Paul Griffiths https://www.sco.org.uk/profile/paul-griffiths/
John Stevens Search and Reflect workshops https://www.scribd.com/document/758658457/John-Stevens-search-Reflect-1
Community Music https://future.london/organisation/community-music/
Peter Weigold https://thethirdorchestra.org/peter-wiegold
School of Culture and Community Studies (now Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies), University of Sussex https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/centre-for-cultural-studies/
Music, Society, Education by Christpher Small (1977) https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1800
Loose Tubes Big Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Tubes
Mark Withers https://www.markwithers.net/bio
Sean Gregory https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/prof-sean-gregory
Lincoln Abbotts https://seamusicacademy.online/profile/lincoln-abbotts/
The Messengers https://metamorphonics.co.uk/meet-the-messengers/
ImPossibilities https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/guildhall-jazz-festival-impossibilities
Portuguese Cultural Action group Ondamerala https://ondamarela.pt/en/ondamarela-2/
Listen to the Leadership episode https://www.miaaw.net/e/leadership/
Listen to the Peter Renshaw episodes: Part 1  and Part 2 
 
Join the De-Centre mailing list 
 

In July 2024 we interviewed the educator Peter Renshaw, who has been a huge influence on the development of socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall and the initiatives we’ve heard about in this podcast series so far: Leadership, PACE, The Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts and Disrupt. 
Echoes and the Unsaid 
EPISODE 07 | JULY 24 | 2026 
HOSTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
 
COMMENTARY 
In the second part of our conversation with Peter Renshaw, we start by hearing from Sean Gregory. He explains about his experience of the Performance and Communication Skills course at Guildhall in the 1980s, and about the development of the Guildhall Ensemble, the significance of critical reflection, and the importance of peer mentoring.
Peter Renshaw then recalls the course’s move to a crypt in St George in the East, the reciprocal international partnerships he was involved in and his role in establishing research and development at Guildhall School.
 
REFERENCES
Saville Kushner on naturalistic evaluation - https://academic.oup.com/rev/article-abstract/3/2/83/1577828?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_London_Education_Authority
St George in the East converted crypt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George_in_the_East
Saville Kushner - Working Dreams (1986)https://gsmd.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/custom/web/content/Kushner_S_-_Working_Dreams.pdf
Saville Kushner - A Musical Education - Innovation in the conservatoire (1988)https://gsmd.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/custom/web/content/Kushner_S_-_A_Musical_Education_Innovation_in_the_Conservatoire.pdf
Heloisa Feichas and Sean Gregory, Create and Connect: Improvisation as a Collaborative Learning Experience (2026) https://academic.oup.com/book/61812/chapter-abstract/546705089?redirectedFrom=fulltext
 

In July 2024 we interviewed the educator Peter Renshaw, who has been a huge influence on the development of socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall and the initiatives we’ve heard about in this podcast series so far: Leadership, PACE, The Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts and Disrupt.
Peter has written extensively on music, education and socially engaged practice and is an influential figure in the worlds of community music and collaborative practices. 
Echoes and the Unsaid 
EPISODE 06 | JUNE 26 | 2026 
HOSTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
 
COMMENTARY 
In the first part of this conversation we hear from Peter about a seminal experience he had in 1961 visiting refugee camps in Austria when he was a student and his experience as principal of the Menuhin School where he introduced music students performing in schools, hospices and prisons and coal mines. 
Peter then moved to Guildhall in 1984 to set up the Performance, Communication Skills course. We hear about his ability to get external funding to set up that course, about the staff Peter got involved to run the course in the early days and the necessary allies and partners he connected with to support the development of the programme. 
We end this episode with Peter inviting Sean Gregory into the conversation. Sean was a student of the course in  1989 and is now Vice-Principal & Director of Innovation and Engagement at Guildhall. 
We’ll hear more from Sean and Peter in episode 7. 
 
REFERENCES
Menuhin School https://www.menuhinschool.co.uk/
The Society for the Promotion of Educational Reform Through Teacher Training (SPERTT / SPERTTT) https://www.proquest.com/openview/20d1005ac955a54bc50241aaf1f28439/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820949
Dame Cicely Saunders, palliative care pioneer https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cicelysaunders/about-us/cicely-saunders
Carl Rogers, humanistic psychology https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/carl-r-rogers
Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_London_Education_Authority
John Hosier, principal of Guildhall (1978-89) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/apr/03/guardianobituaries
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s The Arts in Schools report written by Ken Robinson (1982) https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/1989/01/The_Arts_in_Schools.pdf
Sally Bacon and Pauline Tambling’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s  The Arts in Schools: Foundations for the Future (2023) https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-Arts-in-Schools-full-report-2023.pdf
Peter Brinson – Director of UK and British Commonwealth Branch,Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 1972-82 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-brinson-1614720.html
Helena Gauntt https://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/staff/helena-gaunt
 

Jo and Sophie talk to programme leaders, tutors, students and the administrator of the two-year postgraduate Leadership programme, which ran from 2007–2019 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama for musicians wanting to develop their practice in socially engaged settings.
This constitutes episode 5 of a special series for miaaw.net about social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s–2020s.
 Echoes and the Unsaid 
EPISODE 05 | MAY 22 | 2026 
HOSTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
COMMENTARY
In this episode, we hear from tutors Jan Hendrickse, Nell Catchpole and Sigrun Sævarsdóttir-Griffiths; administrator Lucy Hunt; and students Preetha Narayanan and Jo Gibson about the beginnings, changes and challenges of the programme.
Topics include: the diverse, international cohort; how staff and students navigated the process of making music in different settings; how meanings of socially engaged practice evolved over time; and the tensions between the programme and the conservatoire context in which it was situated.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the podcast and to the Leadership programme over the years.
 
REFERENCES
Links to websites of the podcast guests:
Jan Hendrickse https://www.janhendrickse.com/
Nell Catchpole https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/nell-catchpole
Sigrun Sævarsdóttir-Griffiths https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/sigrun-saevarsdottir-griffiths
Preetha Narayanan https://www.preethanarayanan.com/
Jo Gibson https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/profile/1884
Past website documenting the Leadership programme
Guildhall Connect https://royalanniversarytrust.org.uk/winners/guildhall-connect-a-large-scale-programme-using-musical-creativity-to-engage-and-inspire-young-people/
Series of reports about Guildhall Connect by Chigusa Futako
Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Guildhall
De-centre for Socially Engaged Practice and Research

In the fourth episode of Echoes and the Unsaid Jo and Sophie talk to a group of people involved in the BA Performance and Creative Enterprise (PACE) Programme that ran from 2015-2021 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 
They discuss the background to the course, reflections on how it challenged the structures of the conservatoire and the generative community of practice that evolved between students and staff during the life of the programme.
 Echoes and the Unsaid
 
EPISODE 04 | APRIL 24 | 2026 
PARTICIPANTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
COMMENTARY
 
Jo Gibson and Sophie Hope talk to a group of people involved in the BA Performance and Creative Enterprise (PACE) Programme that ran from 2015-2021 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 
We hear from student Georgia Dodsworth, the programme co-ordinator, Naomi Nathan, module leader for collaborative practice, Natasha Zielazinski, and lecturer Justin O'Shaughnessy. 
They discuss the background to the course, reflections on how it challenged the structures of the conservatoire and the generative community of practice that evolved between students and staff during the life of the programme. Thank you to the contributors of this podcast and all the staff and students who worked on the PACE programme. 
REMINDER
This is episode 4 in a special series for miaaw.net about social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s to the 2020s. 
The series is hosted by Jo Gibson (Research Fellow, Institute for Social Justice, York St John University) and Sophie Hope (co-lead of the De-centre for socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall School of Music and Drama). 
REFERENCES
PACE alumni https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/study-with-guildhall/drama/performance-creative-enterprise-alumni
Natasha Zielazinski https://natashazielazinski.com/
 
Georgia Dodsworth https://natashazielazinski.com/
Open school East https://openschooleast.org/
Shoreditch Festival https://www.ponystudio.co.uk/pictures/projects/shoreditch-festival/
Cultural Olympiad https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09548963.2013.798999
Barbican Creative Learning https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/about-guildhall/news/barbican-guildhall-creative-learning-marks-decade-of-transforming-lives
Bedwyr Williams exhibition in the Curve Gallery (2016-17) https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2016/event/bedwyr-williams-the-gulch
Islington Mill https://www.islingtonmill.com/
Ways of Seeing by John Berger https://www.ways-of-seeing.com/
Memorial to Kenny Mukendi https://www.wired4music.co.uk/2019/10/in-memory-of-kenny-mukendi-a-k-a-vulcan-mc/
Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson by Mark Fisher (2009) https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Resistible-Demise-of-Michael-Jackson-by-Mark-Fisher/9781846943485?srsltid=AfmBOoom0-_--ptJKx839YJkarW0EBO9wEnQihlwCV8tHp1COIEDYdpi
Books by bell hooks https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/collections/author-books-by-bell-hooks?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20190430526&gbraid=0AAAAADZzAIA7QFIPekGdxZuNRNF3ENifr&gclid=CjwKCAjwspPOBhB9EiwATFbi5GtShIa91SaSwVKAGIA_ws9h3ekoXhEXu7Rz7nVV6SWrfTrcIQO41BoCZccQAvD_BwE
 

This is episode 3 in a special series for miaaw.net about social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s-2020s. 
The series is hosted by Jo Gibson (Research Fellow, Institute for Social Justice, York St John University) and Sophie Hope (co-lead of the De-centre for socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall School of Music and Drama).
 Echoes and the Unsaid 
 
EPISODE 03 | MARCH 27 | 2026 
PARTICIPANTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
COMMENTARY
In this episode we meet John Sloboda (Emeritus Professor at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Director of the Institute), Imogen Flower (researcher and evaluator), Toby Young (Professor of Composition at Guildhall School) and Maia Mackney (Public Engagement and Evaluation Manager at Guildhall School). 
We talk about their involvement in The Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts at Guildhall School which ran from 2019-2023. We find out more about how and why it started, its framing within the Research Excellence Framework, critical insights into debates about social impact, evidence and impact agendas and the burgeoning role of practice-research at Guildhall School. Thanks go to all our podcast contributors and to Rachel Kellet who couldn’t join us for this episode and everyone else who was part of Institute’s work.
 
REFERENCES
Music for Social Impact research project
https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/research-engagement-services/research/externally-funded-research/music-for-social-impact
SIMM platform https://www.simm-platform.eu/
COMA – contemporary music for all https://www.coma.org/
Embracing the Messiness: A Creative Approach to Participatory Arts Evaluation article by Maia Mackney and Toby Young (2021) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09548963.2021.2000330 
Whose social impact is it anyway? Directionality and the potential of affect in community music article by Impogen Flower (2024) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09548963.2024.2424580
Karen Wise and Cressida Lindsey music therapy evaluation in schools ResearchWorks event
https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/researchworks-evaluating-music-therapy-designing-meaningful-and-flexible-protocol-for
Strengthening Music in Society conference report (2021)
https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-04/Strengthening_Music_in_Society_-_conference_report_April_2022.pdf
 
Introducing the De-Centre podcast on Miaaw.net https://www.miaaw.net/e/introducing-the-de-centre/
 

Sophie, Jo, and guests, discuss power sharing, community leadership, governance structures, co-creation, longitudinal evaluation, anti-oppressive working practices, and communities of practice. 
Echoes and the Unsaid 
 
EPISODE 02 | FEBRUARY 27 | 2026 
PARTICIPANTS
Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope
COMMENTARY
In this episode, Sophie and Jo talk to Jo Chard, Senior Producer for Disrupt at Guildhall School;  Divya Satwani, producer, Somatic coach and facilitator; Alan Lane, co-chair of Slung Low, a theatre company in Leeds; and Maia Mackney, Public Engagement and Evaluation Manager at Guildhall School. 
We talk about their involvement in Disrupt, an ongoing series of interventions, initiated in 2020 at Guildhall School, to explore ways in which cultural organisations collaborate with communities more equitably. 
We discuss power sharing, community leadership, governance structures, co-creation, longitudinal evaluation, anti-oppressive working practices, communities of practice and more!  Thanks go to all our podcast contributors and to Iona McTaggart, who couldn’t join us for this episode, and everyone else who has been part of Disrupt over the years. 
REFERENCES
Disrupt Toolkit: https://www.disruptfestival.org/toolkit
Slung Low https://www.slunglow.org/
Sharing power: the ethics of decision making and funding article by Maia Mackney and Jo Chard https://ncace.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NCACE-Research-Report-Collaborations.pdf
Old Fire Station Storytelling Evaluation Method: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/our-work/storytelling-evaluation-methodology/
Cards on the Table: https://www.cardsonthetable.org/
Barbican Communities and Neighbourhoods Team – Imagine Fund https://www.barbican.org.uk/imagine-fund-2024
Leytonstone Love Film: https://www.barbican.org.uk/leytonstone-loves-film-community-fund
Community Impact Collective: https://www.barbican.org.uk/community-impact-collective
Headway East: https://headwayeastlondon.org/
Jumped Up Theatre: https://jumpeduptheatre.com/
Can we talk about power? Online talk series curated by Suzanne Alleyne: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/can-we-talk-about-power