Sarah Hicks, Principal Conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall hosts Music and Healing, an online collection of conversations and a full concert performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, with musicians, special guest artists and experts who share ways in which music can help us understand, process, expre...

Minnesota Orchestra musicians cellist Sonia Mantell and Associate Principal Flute Greg Milliren share what it’s like to experience and navigate the challenges that anxiety presents to performers.

Singer/Songwriter Chastity Brown’s vulnerabilities around her mental health are integral to her creative process. Chastity was beginning to write new music with composer Andy Thompson for their collaboration with the Minnesota Orchestra when she spoke with Sarah Hicks.

Friend and collaborator Lazerbeak is a musician, producer and manager. As a father of three young kids, Lazerbeak talks about his mental health struggles and mindfulness journey with Sarah Hicks.

Dr. Hubert Lim from the University of Minnesota joined Sarah Hicks on stage during the Minnesota Orchestra’s Music and Healing concert to discuss auditory neuroscience, how music is processed by the brain and the impact music can have when we are experiencing anxiety.

Friend, collaborator and mindfulness expert Mariann Johnson joins Sarah Hicks for a conversation about wellbeing and having compassion for ourselves and the world around us, during a visit to the arboretum.

Sarah Hicks talks with Dr. Kelvin Lim, a professor of psychiatry from the University of Minnesota, who reminds us that our brains have developed over millions of years and some level of anxiety, including music that may make us anxious, can be beneficial to our wellbeing. Experiencing music toget...

Led by Sarah Hicks, Music and Healing explores the intersection of music, anxiety and well-being. Part concert, part conversation featuring experts and musicians, the program includes a new work for orchestra inspired by audience responses to their own experiences with managing anxiety and findin...

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is riddled with despair. Its manic Allegro includes jagged edges, clashing chords and rhythms crashing forward. “Now that,” conductor Sarah Hicks said at the conclusion of the work, “is what anxiety feels like to me.”

Dianne Hartman has been a psychiatrist and social worker in Michigan for more than 30 years. As a musician and composer, she has written works that address mental health issues in an effort to promote understanding and empathy around the stigma that her patients face. The Orchestra performed the ...

What does anxiety feel like to you? What does feeling at peace in your body feel like? How do you move from feeling anxious to comfort? These were the questions that the Orchestra posed to its social media followers. Their responses were integrated into a new commission by composer Molly Joyce.

Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Chastity Brown strives to shine a light on mental health through her art, expressing her experiences poignantly through music. Music and Healing included a pair of powerful new songs from Brown, including “Can’t Take You Out” and “Mosaic,” both of which were ar...

Written following the French composer’s trip to Spain, Emmanuel Chabrier’s “España” captures the joyful music he heard on his travels. “I leave you now with music of exuberance and bright sunshine,” said conductor Sarah Hicks when introducing “España,” the program’s culminating work. “Music that ...

Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Chastity Brown strives to shine a light on mental health through her art, expressing her experiences poignantly through music. Music and Healing included a pair of powerful new songs from Brown, including “Can’t Take You Out” and “Mosaic,” both of which were ar...

For a Music and Healing encore, Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Chastity Brown performed “Like the Sun,” a song from her 2022 album “Sing to the Walls” that swells with joy.

For contemporary Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu, birds symbolize many things: messengers on a divine mission, for instance, and gateways to viewing the wonder and erosion of the natural world. Describing “And Birds Are Still…,” the composer wrote, “it is a simple piece in the form of a shor...