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Professorship in Music-Based Therapies and Interventions

The Professorship in Music-Based Therapies and Interventions (MTI) focuses on deepening the core values of music therapy, using research, practice and clinical applications, as well as approaches from a wide range of medical, therapeutic and technical applications. This in turn will be translated into the Music Therapy bachelor, master and doctoral programmes.

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Music-Based Therapies and Interventions

In brief

The Professorship in Music-Based Therapies and Interventions (MTI) is a further elaboration of the Music Therapy Knowledge Centre, which has been producing research results for a number of years. It seeks (inter)national cooperation for setting up research, with an emphasis on optimising music as an intervention in human performance in healthcare, welfare and (special) education.

Music is one of the few activities that activates the entire brain.

How does humanity create a system that allows diverse world views to shape the future?

Music touches us quite literarily.

Investigating a multi sensory stimulus such as music and its effects on the brain has been at the centre of research conducted within the Professorship in Music-based therapies and Interventions. It is the clinical approach and application of music in intervention and therapeutic settings, which informs neuropsychological as well as neuroscientific research into the effectivity of music therapy interventions in clinical and neurotypical populations across the life span.

Utilising collected data and result in turn, helps developing innovative (music)technologies and music/brain computer interfaces (mBCI), which make clinical music-based therapies and interventions fit for the 21st century.


The way we teach, learn and interact in todays society is changing faster than ever. Humans and Machines are increasingly working, living and interacting with each other. And yet, it remains crucial to place our focus on core human values, such as creativity and music. Against this backdrop, music therapists not only serve as clinicians but can be also regarded as guides towards care for others, elevating their knowledge towards experiences in clinical and non-clinical populations
The symbiosis between machine learning and human care and arts, lies in utilising experiences where man and machine complement each other and learn together, without hierarchies or superiority. It is now, we understand how to use technology to teach and practise care through the arts.

The mission of the professorship/lectoraat in music-based therapies and interventions therefore, approaches this conundrum within the context of a digital society, through research and education in both bachelor and master of music therapy:

MUSIC (Musical, Unique, Skilled, Innovative, and Collaborative) at the heart of music therapy

  • Musical: Accumulate the understanding of the mechanisms of music: Research into the specific mechanisms of music as an expressive, enhancing, entraining, and/or aesthetic aspect is essential for a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of music in treatment.
  • Unique: Integration by focusing on effective and ineffective interventions. Research aims to identify not only effective, but also explicitly ineffective interventions.
  • Skilled: Cherishing specialisations in different domains.
  • Innovative: Aiming for impact.
  • Collaborative: Expanding high-quality collaboration.

What is music, and why is it unique in triggering our emotions and contribute to care and neural development. Musicianship should be regarded as one of many therapeutic goals to understand the machine and human as well as human-human interaction in a world which facilitates change through technology.

The ArtEZ Professorship/Lectoraat Music-based Therapies and Interventions will establish a unique place for higher education and innovative research in music-based therapies and interventions—in the Netherlands, in Europe as well as worldwide. Thus, the Professorship contributes to the further recognition and understanding of music therapy as a specific, unique music-based intervention to support change for client populations who encounter problems on a wide array of pathologies.

Read more on the professorship website