Updates from Australia and New Zealand

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Jeanette Milford Regional Liaison for Australia/New Zealand Contact: australianewzealand@wfmt.info

Jeanette Milford
Regional Liaison for Australia/New Zealand
Contact: australianewzealand@wfmt.info[/caption]

What a privilege to finally meet face-to-face with the WFMT Council in Oslo in August and devote an entire day to discussing our business. Such an improvement on 3 a.m. Skype meetings! I can tell you the council is a very efficient, hard-working bunch and also fantastic sight-seeing company!

Representatives from Krems, Austria, gave WFMT Council an enthusiastic update on their preparations for the World Congress in Austria, 7-12 July 2014. I do hope you can join us at this wonderful event and the pre-congress seminars in Vienna!

I found the European music therapy conference in Norway a friendly, diverse and stimulating event, with memorable daily conference photos and satirical videos adding humor and community spirit! The WFMT roundtable presentation was late in the day but still attracted an interested crowd who seemed pleasantly surprised by the breadth and depth of ongoing WFMT work.

Australian and New Zealand music therapists enjoyed a fabulous AMTA National Conference in Melbourne in September, focusing on Music and Health: Evidence and Evolution. Emeritus Professor Denise Grocke was opening speaker and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award. We were conducted, entertained and challenged to think in new ways about improvisation and identity by keynote speaker and saxophonist Professor Raymond MacDonald. We were also inspired by a moving performance by Stroke-a-Chord, a choir of stroke survivors with aphasia. The conference ended on a hilarious note with the ‘Great Debate: Is music therapy a stairway to heaven or a highway to hell?’

AMTA (Australia) is proud of our Facebook page and new website! Check us out at http://www.austmta.org.au/ What do you think of our new definition of music therapy as a research-based practice and profession in which music is used to actively support people as they strive to improve their health and wellbeing?

Jeanette Milford

Australia/New Zealand Regional Liaison

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