Jennifer Marie J. Yang, MD

A mid-August visit to the University of the Philippines College of Music: it felt like coming home!

Soon after we launched our series of health talks with the University of the Philippines Symphony Orchestra, I attended a wonderful, productive, inspiring meeting with the College of Music dean, college secretary, faculty members and a music therapist to discuss the intersections of music and health. Musika at ginhawa, ika nga sa Filipino [music and relief, as we say in Filipino]. “Ginhawa” is commonly translated as “relief”, but it is more than that – it is a sense of comfort, healing and well-being. We’re still brainstorming and figuring out the logistics of what “musika at ginhawa” will eventually look like, but I am happy and excited to be part of this endeavor – it brings together my interests and unique skill set encompassing music, medicine and sociocultural issues (anthropology).

The College of Music was (is) my musical home – years of weekly piano lessons from kindergarten through high school, a summer of guitar lessons before starting medical school, and four years of the Comprehensive Preparatory Music Program (CPMP) in childhood. The CPMP provided me with a firm grounding in music theory, solfeggio singing, and ensemble performance with indigenous Filipino instruments – all very useful as I grew as a musician. During the meeting I learned that the program was scrapped in 1990, but there is interest in relaunching it in the near future. I also took ballet classes there but eventually decided dance wasn’t my thing (and I hated the tights and leotards which were not compatible with the Philippines’ tropical, hot and humid climate).

Grateful to Bridel and Leslie for being instrumental (pun intended) in (re)connecting me with UPCMu. They are fellow music x medicine people, but with much more musical credibility than I possess: both are physicians who have college-level degrees (and in Leslie’s case, post-graduate) in music, plus professional music-making and music-teaching experience. If music-making were a beach, I’d be standing in the shallow areas where you could still feel the sand beneath your feet. These two would be out there surfing the waves!

I was overwhelmed with emotion and teary-eyed as I left the campus – it was indeed a homecoming, and thankful that my dreams are starting to come true! It’s been a very long time since I put “performing arts” and “medicine” into an internet search bar and I am finally here – at home.