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Blog
July 24, 2024
2024 Arts and Health Week Sponsors
On June 14, LA Opera Connects hosted the third annual Los Angeles County Arts and Health Week Summit in collaboration with LA County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, First District; Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; and Healing Arts—an initiative of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab; and the World Health Organization (WHO). Earlier that month, Arts and Health Week had been declared by a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors motion to highlight the efforts of organizations around the county working at the intersection of creativity and wellness. This motion also asserted that the arts can influence all five social determinants of health (healthcare, education, community, economics, and environment), when implemented into service through cross-sector collaboration.
This week-long celebration culminated in the Arts and Health Week Summit, held here at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which explored the connections between art and healing through conversations and participatory experiences. With renowned soprano and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health Renée Fleming as advisor and advocate, thought leaders including arts practitioners, medical experts and administrators, policymakers, researchers and more gathered to explore how the arts can increasingly, and equitably, support health and wellbeing.
This year's Summit highlighted the foundations and future of arts and health research, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Jill Sonke (Director of Research Initiatives at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine), with panels that included Kristin Sakoda (Director of Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture), Dr. Barbara Ferrer (Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health), Dr. Daniel J. Levitin (neuroscientist, author and musician) and Dr. Nisha Sajnani (Co-Director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab and a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development).
We also enjoyed a plethora of art related activities, plus presentations by Eric Whitacre (GRAMMY® Award-winning composer, conductor and speaker) and Dr. Robert M. Bilder (Tennenbaum Family Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology and Director of the National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab at UCLA). The day concluded with a panel moderated by Renée Fleming discussing her new anthology book Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, and a social dance program—Feel the Rhythm of The Music Center’s Dance DTLA—on the Jerry Moss Plaza.
Renée Fleming's prodigious history with LA Opera in the field of arts and health began years before the first Summit in 2018. During the summits, Ms. Fleming presented her Music and Mind program in Los Angeles, exploring the connections between music and neuroscience. She has also joined LA Opera Connects to produce scholarship events and to bring various healthcare partners together to share best practices and ideas for new programs. As LA Opera's Advisor for Special Projects, Ms. Fleming's support for the annual Arts and Health Week Summit has proved invaluable.
In addition to the Summit, Connects presents a variety of innovative programs that integrate music and wellness practices. Our uniquely skilled teaching artists work with patients at UCLA Health to combat the debilitating symptoms of long COVID (including chronic pain, brain fog, shortness of breath, chest pain and intense fatigue) by practicing breathing, phonation and mindfulness exercises. They also inspire joy and promote healing through virtual bedside concerts at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center. By providing on-site holiday caroling, live concerts and “Healthcare Heroes Nights,” which offer medical professionals free tickets to the opera, Connects lifts the spirits of both patients and hospital staff. We are committed to improving the wellness of our communities and are thrilled to offer everyone the chance to experience opera.
We'd like to thank our generous sponsors: The Music Man Foundation, The Office of First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, Kaiser Permanente, and LA Care Health Plan.
To learn more about LA Opera Connects programming and view recorded presentations from the Los Angeles County Arts and Health Week Summit, click here.
To learn more about the many ways your foundation or company can support LA Opera’s third Annual Arts and Health Week Summit click here or contact Joslyn Treece, Director of Institutional Giving and Government Relations, at 213.972.3012 or jtreece@laopera.org.