Music Alum’s Arts Group Awarded Major Grant

Recently, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awarded a $500,000 grant to establish music therapy programs to help hospital workers in the Philadelphia region battle pandemic exhaustion. Previously, there have been music therapy programs to aid patients, but never frontline workers, who have been battling the COVID-19 virus for 20+ months.

The grant was awarded to The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, who works with PA Music Therapy Task Force, an arts group that Lewis & Clark Department of Music Alum Zein Hassanein BA ’13 is actively involved in. The groups are working together to divide the grant money and assist hospital workers at five different Pennsylvania hospitals.

Zein Hassanein graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a BA in Music in 2013, and has been working as a board-certified music therapist in the Philadelphia area since he attained his Master’s degree in Music Therapy and Counseling from Drexel University in 2018.

The hospitals will study the impact of music therapy for frontline workers, in hopes it improves mood, well-being, and health, according to The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.