From Dr. Lisa Wong, LSO President

Dear Friends,

Every once in a while an opportunity comes along that pulls the many threads of a life together. This week, this tour, has done that more frequently, more completely, and to a greater extent than any of us could have anticipated.

While we knew that it would be exciting to combine music and medicine beyond the theoretical to the practical with the delivery of musical performances and medical lectures, the tour has gone beyond all expectations.

In five short days, Longwood Symphony members visited , shared clinical and scientific knowledge or met with people in London from the following institutions:

-St. Bartholomew’s Hospital

-Marie Curie Research Institute (MCRI)

-Eden Hall Marie Curie Hospice

-Royal Marsden Hospital

-Royal National Orthopedic Hospital

-Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine, Oxford University

-Arthur Rank Hospice, Cambridge

-British Association of Performing Arts Medicine

-St. Christopher’s Hospice

-National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence

-Macmillan Cancer Trust

Each day, a different member returned to excitedly report about a new meaningful medical or scientific connection made at these opportunities

-LSO trumpet Dr. Len Zon and cellist Dr. Heidi Greulich discovered the complementary research and therapeutic threads in each other’s work: they plan to develop new collaborations at Harvard Medical School in the near future

-Violinist Jennifer Chang, 7^th year Harvard Medical School M.D. –Ph.D. student found that researchers at the MCRI are doing similar work in genetics as she is doing in her lab and were familiar with the work of her advisor.

-Cellist Nancy Chane, RN, works with Partners HomeCare in Boston, and has been doing intensive research through the week on the similarities and differences between the hospice movement in the UK and US. During the week, Nancy visited Marie Curie Eden Hall Hospice, St. Christopher’s Hospice, and Arthur Rank Hospice, met with people from Macmillan Cancer Support, and will present her findings in Grand Rounds in Boston.

-Dr. Mark Gebhardt, clarinetist and orthopedist, in his lecture, described the treatment options for children with bone cancer. The next day, he met with colleagues at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital and Stanmore Implants to help design more effective prostheses. This work will continue across the Atlantic.

-Even at a performance: at our Bishopsgate Institute concert, violinist Dr. Anna Legedza, a biostatistician at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, met Dr. Alastair Fletcher, a fellow statistician from the UK’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence during the concert intermission. They had a lively discussion about biostatistics and their research on the global spread of Hepatitis C.

And of course there was the music. Jonathan McPhee’s repertoire truly represented a bridge across the Atlantic, and had a remarkable symmetry in programming. The first half opened with Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, an opportunity to showcase the remarkable talent of our medical students, Sherman Jia and Sandy Mong. The second half opened with Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Heiter Villa-Lobos, that composer’s homage to Bach. The centerpiece was Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” in its original scoring for three winds, piano, and strings. Jonathan had brought an intensely personal “Appalachian Spring” to London—this is a work he had performed with Aaron Copland and Martha Graham, and he was delighted to share with London audiences once again. Added to that were the performances of two visually evocative masterworks: Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville Summer of 1915” and Ralph Vaughan Williams “The Lark Ascending” with American Soprano Janna Baty and British violinist David Juritz. In both performances, one could hear not only their fine musicality but deep humanity.

The tour was a demonstration of Music as healing, Music as a means of communication when there are no words left, and Music as a gift. It was also a demonstration of Medicine as healing, Medicine as a means of communication, and Medicine as a gift. Truly a bridging of our two disciplines, across the Atlantic.

Lisa M. Wong, M.D.