Gaelen McCormick
Gaelen McCormick is the Director of the Eastman Performing Arts Medicine (EPAM) Center at the University of Rochester. Before joining EPAM in 2018, she was a musician with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1995-2017. Since losing her hearing in 2017, Gaelen has forged a new career path as an arts administrator, writer, and composer.
Leading EPAM has allowed Gaelen to focus on artist wellness and the use of music and arts in the healthcare setting. She has published two articles on hearing conservation for performing artists, one in the International Musician and the second in the Journal of Performing Arts Leadership in Higher Education. She coordinates research efforts that examine the impact of arts in health and fosters interdisciplinary work among researchers and artists from the many units of the University of Rochester. Working with the medical music therapy program at the University of Rochester Medical Center, she has helped to create a training program which prepares artists to share music safely and appropriately in the healthcare environment.
She has successfully obtained grants for performance opportunities and pilot programs implementing live music in healthcare spaces from the Finger Lakes Arts Council, the Arts & Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, Project Music Heals Us, the Friends of Strong Foundation, the Pluta Foundation, and most recently the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gaelen holds degrees in music performance from the Eastman School of Music and Carnegie Mellon University. She is an alumna of the League of American Orchestra’s Essentials of Orchestral Management training program. Mirroring her passions for music and arts administration, she is the Vice President of the National Organization for Arts in Health and the President of the International Society of Bassists.
Gaelen McCormick created a series of short videos on scale preparation:
Levels 1 and 2:
Levels 3 and 4:
Levels 5 and 6: