Music Therapy at MacPhail Center for Music- Austin
“…But seeing him respond to that music was our way of knowing he was still right there with us.”
Photos by Sophia Helen Photography
Emma Evans-Peck admits that she never even heard of music therapy until her sophomore year of high school. It happened this way: Her grandfather lay in a hospice bed, largely unresponsive following a stroke. The family thought they’d lost their connection with him. But when a music therapist arrived and encouraged them to play some of his favorite World War II-era songs, he reacted by tapping his toes.
“He wasn’t able to talk,” Emma recalls. “But seeing him respond to that music was our way of knowing he was still right there with us.”
Today, as a board-certified music and neurologic music therapist—and the latest addition to MacPhail’s music therapy team—she can speak to this phenomenon scientifically. She’s studied the decades of research on music’s capacity to heal.
Because music reaches areas of the brain that are involved with emotions and memories, music therapists can treat patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Since music can soothe a perpetual need for sensory input, this therapy can help people living with autism. And since playing an instrument requires the brain to focus for sustained periods, music therapy can help rewire synapses in the minds of people with ADHD and sensory processing disorders.
MacPhail began offering music therapy to the community in 2002. Cofounded and led by senior music therapist Melissa Wenszell, the team provides sessions at MacPhail and brings the program to schools, hospitals, care homes, and community centers.
Music therapy is a common treatment technique for people with neurodevelopmental disorders like autism or ADHD. For example, if a child has difficulty focusing at school, Emma might use Music Attention Control Training (MACTⓇ) to build up this skill.
“At MacPhail, we have all kinds of fun instruments,” Emma says. “And using the structure of music and different timbres of sounds, I’ll ask them to listen for a change in the pattern I’m playing. Or I’ll tell them not to listen to me and keep playing their pattern, even if I come in and play a triangle obnoxiously. They’re learning to tune out what they don’t need to attend to.”
The marks of success are very different for Emma’s clients who are in the final years of life. When she visits patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s at the Mower County Senior Center, she primarily works on memory and speech recovery.
“I have a few patients who have a hard time communicating with words,” says Melissa Groesbeck, a senior advocate at the center. “But I noticed that they all knew the lyrics as soon as the music came on. I looked around, and they were all singing!.”
Recently, Emma was added as a music therapist in the special education pre-K classrooms of Austin Public Schools. Her vast array of skills enables her to support children with language delays, fine motor issues, and second language learning. It seems there’s hardly anyone that Emma and her colleagues can’t help with their therapeutic techniques!
Learn more about the Music Therapy program at MacPhail here!
Emma Evans-Peck joined MacPhail’s Music Therapy faculty in 2024. Emma has been a board-certified music therapist since 2019 and neurologic music therapist since 2023. She has provided services across populations and settings, including children and adults with Autism and other developmental delays, adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders, public school settings in special education, veterans, hospice care, and individuals and groups with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Emma completed her Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy at Wartburg College with a minor in psychology with her internship at Park Nicollet in Minneapolis. She grew up in a music-loving family, and saw the effects of music therapy on her grandfather while he was on hospice, causing her to pursue this meaningful career. Emma has a strong passion for the use of music to help individuals reach their full potential and reads research to stay up-to-date on the profession. She is looking forward to growing access to music therapy in the Austin community and working alongside MacPhail staff.