Together, Through Music
Thoughts From Our Founder, Molly Carr
Founder & Artistic Director, Project: Music Heals Us
Dear Friends,
As we come to the close of another year, the PMHU team asked me to answer three big questions regarding PMHU’s work over the past year and what I hope we will achieve in the year ahead. I’d like to share my answers with you here…
What are your three most memorable moments of 2025?
Only three???! OK… here’s my best shot. (A better question would be top 20 at least!) But since we have three branches of programming, I’ll just give a highlight for each program.
For our Novel Voices distance learning program: This year, I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya to work in-person with students from the Korogocho slum whom PMHU has been teaching over zoom for the past four years.
I brought with me a team of Juilliard-trained musicians to work intensively with our Kenyan students for 10 days, performing for the Korogocho community on the last day.
Within this span of 10 days and the final concerts, there were more highly-emotional, memorable moments than I can fit in a blog post! But one moment stood out in particular: the moment we gifted three students with their very own instruments the last night of the visit.
I got to watch as one student clung to the neck of one of our PMHU teachers sobbing from gratitude, and another started jumping and dancing like the pied piper shouting in excitement, and the third just shook his head in disbelief muttering again and again “Thank you for this gift. Thank you. I promise I will work like you’ve never seen someone work. Thank you for this gift. Thank you.”
Being able to be the right person in the right place at the right time to facilitate cross-continental friendships and offer tools that have the potential to change lives in a place in the world where making 39 cents a day is a “win”… this is the most incredible gift and privilege as an artist and human. (P.S. – a massive shipment of instruments for all of our remaining students will be taking off on January 5th!!)
For our Music For The Future prison program: In the middle of a Juilliard String Quartet rehearsal in the Spring, I received a video filmed and sent to PMHU by one of the deputies facilitating one of our Music For The Future programs’ final concerts in their jail. The video was of a group of women wearing blue and yellow suits singing in a big circle with our musicians playing in the middle.
The group was singing the words, “You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can’t bring you down. You are beautiful, in each and every way…”
At first glance, this brought me to tears seeing and hearing such a beautiful and unexpected sight from behind bars – but then what really got me was the short, simple text that followed: “We just learned that almost all of the women had ‘keep separates’ because of fighting and threats. Here we are all mixed blueberries and bananas.”
And in our Vital Sounds Initiative hospital program: 2025 marked a milestone for us!
PMHU became an official Art Pharmacy partner – which means doctors can now prescribe live music for patients and musician fees can be covered by insurance. It’s a powerful step toward sustainable, integrated arts-in-health care, and one that brings music to patients when they need it most.
In 2025, what feels like the single throughline that has connected everything PMHU does – across hospitals, justice programs, and global classrooms?
The throughline for all that we do is… “Why this? Why us? Why now?” Throughout every layer of what PMHU builds in our programming and/or our infrastructure – what we choose to invest our time, woman/man power, and resources on – is all based on these questions.
Why MUSIC? – We choose music as our weapon of choice in waging peace on our very broken world. Music’s ability to instantly create kind, safe, supportive relationships and eventually communities in the least likely places on earth is like magic. Why? Because it is truly the “universal language” – and one that we have seen works for over a decade!
Why PMHU? – Each moment of expansion this year, we have seen clearly that we are the right people in the right place at the right time to do this work. If not us, then who? Growing up, there was a quote in my schoolroom that said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” PMHU has access to many of the most highly skilled musicians on earth. PMHU is connected to some of the most underserved and isolated communities on earth… If not us, then who??
Why NOW? – We are now in a time in our country and beyond where PMHU’s work has become one of the last bipartisan things that can bridge divides to bring people together to support, build, and uplift. In a world screaming division, anger, quick triggers, deafened ears, and broken bridges – we see clearly almost DAILY in each of our programs how our work can quietly, stubbornly, gently, yet defiantly make the world a slightly safer and kinder place one relationship at a time. Whether in prison battling recidivism, whether in a forgotten refugee camp in Iraq battling hopelessness, whether in a high-stress ICU battling loneliness, fear, and overwhelm…
Why now??
The answer is clear. If not now, then when??
As we move into the next year, what feels most important to protect, strengthen, or grow at PMHU?
This year saw the expansion of our administrative team to a total of 9 members(!) in order to match the record expansion of our programming across three continents – which is incredible and SO exciting!!!!! It has felt like building an army of administrators, musicians, and community members all around the world.
Something that I have taken great pride in and always wanted to ensure remains at any phase of PMHU, is that when you join our team, our work, or our programs you feel like you are joining a personal, closeknit, caring family – like you’re home! I feel this aspect of PMHU, no matter how big we grow, is so very important to protect as we move into next year and beyond.
This is the heart of our work and truly the reason for the incredible impact we have witnessed. I know as any company grows it can risk forgetting its roots, but I’m excited and confident with the team we have in place now, that this “PMHU heart” will only continue to grow bigger, beat stronger, and become more and more fulfilled as we continue into the next year and beyond!sond!
As we close out Together, Through Music, I want to thank you for believing in this work, for walking alongside us, and for helping shape the world we are building together.
If not now — when?
With deep gratitude,
Molly Carr, Violist
Founder & Artistic Director
Project: Music Heals Us
p.s
There’s still time to give.
Your support this year helped PMHU expand and deepen three core program areas:
Vital Sounds Initiative — refining the artist-patient experience, expanding live therapeutic music into new hospitals and care settings, and deepening our understanding of how music reduces pain, anxiety, and isolation.
Music for the Future — providing residencies inside the justice system where people compose, perform, and reconnect with their own capacity for learning, emotional expression, and hope.
Novel Voices — bringing accessible, high-quality music education to students in Kenya, Palestine, and Iraq through hybrid teaching, leadership development, and cross-cultural exchange.
Across all three, the throughline is the same: music builds safe, human relationships in places where they are needed most.