The history of the Music for Healing & Transition Program
MHTP was founded by Martha Lewis and Laurie Riley in Houston, Texas in March, 1994. These founders had a clear vision for MHTP as a not-for-profit international certification program for music practitioners to provide live therapeutic music. Established exclusively for charitable, literary, and educational purposes, MHTP is funded from student tuition and donations.
MHTP is open to all acoustic melodic instrumentalists, keyboardists and singers. Graduates become Certified Music Practitioners (CMP)®, who bring their compassionate presence and the gift of healing music to individual patients, their families and healthcare workers in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, and other healthcare settings.
Pictured are founders Martha Lewis and Laurie Riley celebrating MHTP’s 20th anniversary during the 2014 conference.
It all began in 1990, when Laurie Riley received information that her father had pneumonia and was in Intensive Care at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, Washington. Laurie was told that he was not expected to live. She put her harp in the back of her car and drove from her home in California to Washington.
Arriving at the hospital, she was granted permission to play at her father's bedside. By the next day his condition began to improve. The nurses and doctors told her they thought the music was the turning point. She stayed to play for several days. He left the hospital two weeks later.
Upon urging from a friend in California, Laurie wrote an article about the experience for the Folk Harp Journal, after which she was asked to do workshops on healing music in several locations, including Houston, Texas.
Meanwhile, in 1994, while completing a Master of Arts in Expressive Arts Therapy/Counseling, Martha Lewis was finishing a statistical research study on the effects of healing music in four intensive care units at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, TX. Martha, after reading Laurie’s article, asked Laurie to give a workshop on healing music at Melody’s Music and Harp Center in Houston. Upon completion of that workshop, Laurie met with Martha and two other interested musicians, Mary Ann Shultz and Mary Radspinner. All four unanimously agreed that there was a need for an educational organization to teach others how to play healing music.
A few days later on March 28, 1994, during a meeting in the back room of Melody’s Music, the Music for Healing and Transition Program was born! After creating a science-based curriculum and structuring the organization, MHTP began classes in December 1994 in Vashon Island, WA, and January 1995 in Houston, TX. MHTP was incorporated in January, 1995 and received nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation status in June 1996.
MHTP is governed by a Board of Directors. Operational management of MHTP is carried out by its Chief Executive Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Program Coordinator and many contractors and volunteers.
Since its inception in 1994, MHTP has offered its program with classes in 21 states and Canada. In 2017, some of the classes were offered via live video conferences. Since 2020, due to COVID-19, all classes have been offered virtually, with options in 2022 to have a mix of onsite and virtual classes. All classes, whether virtual or onsite, are live.
As of December, 2024, MHTP has over 1100 graduates with CMPs being recognized as integral members of healthcare teams throughout the United States and in 7 other countries. Graduates are required to earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to maintain their certification and update their knowledge in the field of live therapeutic music.
Beginning in 2002, MHTP has held highly-successful biennial conferences in a variety of locales across the United States, including virtual conferences since 2020. Virtual, regional and international CEU enrichment days and retreats for students and graduates have been held at numerous sites and virtually every year since 2000.
Updated January, 2024