I co-authored an Op-Ed with a former California government official, my friend from US-Japan Leadership Program. It was published last Tuesday. We wrote on the power of music to heal, and the importance of arts funding. We titled it “In the Age of Covid, the Arts will help us Grieve, Heal and Come Together.” CalMatters.org, a non-profit, non-partisan news outlet on CA policies and politics, published it.
To summarize the piece, music helps all of us. It helps us manage our stress, and positively impacts our perception of pain, both emotional and physical. It even helps the intubated ICU patients, regulating their breaths, reducing their sedative intakes, saving the hospital over $2,300 per patients. But during this pandemic, many music therapists were furloughed or fired. The piece then gives some examples to be followed from California Arts Council and the City of San Francisco. These are funding proposals for community engagements and public health campaigns especially for communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
Since it’s publication four days ago, it has been picked up by Desert Sun, Santa Maria Times, Stockton Recordnet, Lompoc Record, and Santa Ynez Valley News. I am happy that our writing has resonated with so many other publications and readerships, but it’s circulation is due to people recognizing the issue’s need for attention.
There have been many articles on the importance on arts funding lately. USA Today published a piece titled “Why We Need the Arts to Get Us Through the COVID-19 Pandemic” by two doctors from the American Medical College Association. Many advocate the arts as a helpful resource, not just physiologically, but also spiritually and communally, because it’s true, but also because we want to ensure the healthy return of the industry. As another opinion piece, “The Biden-Harris Administration Must Integrate the Arts into our National Recovery” from San Francisco Chronicle attests, “[the] impacts of the pandemic on the sector are clear. Philanthropy at North American arts organizations declined by 14% from January to October 2020. Across the U.S., nearly 40% of all nonprofits are at risk of closing permanently. An estimated 2.7 million jobs have been lost in the creative industries nationwide.”
If you agree with me that music is indeed a powerful agent of healing and uniting, and that the arts is crucial to our humanity, then please do share the article on your social media, and in your community.