Introductions

[Meredith Pizzi]

Please share a bit about your professional experiences and what motivated you to take this course.
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[Meredith Pizzi]

I’m thrilled to be on this online course with all of you! I am Meredith Pizzi, proud to be a Board Certified Music Therapist and excited to see the course finally launch online after a year of planning, research, design and development! Here we are about to embark on a 10 week journey together and I am sure we are all going to learn a lot together.

I am a graduate of Duquesne University’s Music Therapy Program and I had the joy and honor of working with Beth Schwartz as my internship supervisor. I learned so much from her in my internship and really developed a love for working in early childhood. After my internship, I had a very successful private practice on Long Island, NY before moving to Boston in 2006. Once settled into Boston, I founded Roman Music Therapy Services, and in 2009 Sprouting Melodies was born! Since 2009, we have seen our revenues at Roman Music Therapy Services skyrocket, more than tripling in 3 years and a lot of that has to do with the growth of Sprouting Melodies and how well it has been received in our community. What brings me here is the desire to share with others what I have learned about early childhood and music making. And with all of the effort that has gone into growing Sprouting Melodies, I want to give other music therapists the opportunity to now make it part of their practices. I’ve learned so much, and the branding and program development is done! I just want to get it out there to music therapists and families all around the country! So what brings you here??

[Laura Montesano]

Hello fellow music therapists!
I am so excited to be part of this training and to connect (and reconnect 😉 with you. I too have had the honor of working with Beth Schwartz, I did my music therapy internship with her, gosh- over 15 years ago! Shhh! Don’t tell anybody it’s been that long 😉 after my internship I worked as a music therapist on Long Island for a few years, working at a school for children with special needs (preschool age to 9yrs) and I also had a private practice. But then I decided to move to beautiful sunny Boulder, CO and went on to school for my masters. I received my masters in speech-language pathology, and it was always my goal to use both disciplines in my work. Currently I do in-home therapy serving the birth to three Spanish-speaking population of Boulder County. However within just the last couple of months I accepted a very part-time position at a pediatric clinic where I am in the very beginning stages of developing a music therapy program. I plan to give a talk on music therapy by the end of the month and then hope to start groups by the first week in March. Ultimately my goal is to offer music therapy groups in Spanish, but one step at a time. This training is being offered at the perfect time, as I am looking to offer new programs to my community here. Thank you!

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

So great to have you in this training, Laura. You will have much to offer from the SLP perspective. It will also be great to explore and create more literature in other languages. Do you have Spanish resources to share?

[Alyssa Kereki]

Echoing Beth,I would love to see any Spanish resources that you are willing to share. I actually just finished conducting a case study group with female Latino adolescents, and they laughed at how little Spanish I knew but were willing to help me out. Anything you can add to my pathetically meager Spanish repetoire would be greatly appreciated!

[Laura Montesano]

Hi Ladies,
So at this point I’m working primarily with the very little ones (birth to three), so Alyssa unfortunately I don’t think I have anything that I have used myself to offer you for your adolescents, but will certainly keep you in mind. Did you see that The Rebecca Center at Molloy College is going to be offering music therapy for Spanish-speakers- I’m VERY curious to hear more about that.

As far as music that I’m using, I tend to adapt familiar songs and well, make up my own songs as I go- my goal is to get these songs recorded and get them out there!

I’ll keep you updated. I’m sure I have some books on language development, particularly bilingualism – if you’re interested in those.

Thanks for the encouragement.
-Laura

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