New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM) director Julie Croft is one of a group putting together a grant application to take to the NSW Arts Council, to develop a regional music festival for people with disabilities across the region.

It was a morning of musical harmony when members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performed for children with special needs at Mounties recently.

An innovative music therapy project and after school education programme on the Bellarine were awarded Youth Foundations Victoria grants in Portarlington last month.

Students from Wesley College’s St Kilda Rd campus visited the Parkville hospital on May 21 for the hospital’s first live music festival. Hospital music therapy manager and festival director Emma O’Brien said patients in hospital weren’t necessarily expecting to hear classical music.

Ms O’Brien said the hospital’s festival included music from big bands, string quartets, chamber orchestras, choirs, and percussion and string ensembles.

A $6.4 million redevelopment at Warrnambool’s St John of God Hospital was opened recently by Ballarat Catholic Bishop Peter Connors. The centre features the region’s biggest hydrotherapy pool, a gymnasium, therapy rooms, consulting suites, art and music therapy rooms and group rooms.

Helen Bonny died Tuesday, May 25, 2010 after a short time in hospice care. As her daughter wrote when Helen entered hospice, “She anticipates the next life with deep faith and a sense of empowerment in being able to move on. And so she expresses joy, fulfillment, as well as peace… She has enjoyed 89th birthday cards and messages of gratitude and love from so many and feels well connected with all of us. We invite only your prayers/meditations for her smooth transition to the place her Spirit yearns to be.”

John Hunter Children’s Hospital had a special visitor recently, with a music therapy session provided by rising country music star Stephanie Brownlee. Brownlee provided some welcome distraction at the New Lambton hospital with the help of music therapist Sean Nolan.

Darebin Community Health recently received a $31,000 Federal Government grant to set up a choir for people with newly diagnosed dementia. The choir will be a 12-week program, which will end with a public performance. A qualified music therapist will work with the choir.

Royal Melbourne Hospital plans to provide allied health services in a purpose-built building from June 2012. The hospital received $10 million to redevelop its speech pathology, music therapy and podiatry facilities.

Art of Music was devised four years ago by singer Jenny Morris. She is one of the leading fundraisers for the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity. Nicholas Harding, James Powditch, Reg Mombassa and seven other Aussie artists have donated work, each one drawing on a wellknown Australian or Kiwi song for its theme. The paintings were auctioned at a dinner in Sydney on May 29.