Ep 80 Georgina Aasgaard

Georgina Aasgaard


Cellist and Music and Health Practitioner


 


Georgina Aasgaard is a Liverpool based Cellist and Music and
Health practitioner who has a passion for bringing Music from the
concert platform to challenging and more intimate environments.
She has 20 years of experience delivering music interventions in
a broad range of health and social settings such as hospitals,
mental health units, prisons, homes for the elderly as well as
community centres for refugees and the homeless. Her practice
includes 15-year partnerships with the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, Alder
Hey NHS Foundation Trust and Live Music Now. She has also aworked
for 10 years with DadaFest and Drake Music, engaging with people
with disabilities through music making and technology . As a
musician in residence, she has led innovative and groundbreaking
programmes which include both one to one interaction on intensive
care units and group work in mental health units. She has
co-created recovery courses, co-produced performances, exploring
skills such as improvisation, composition, songwriting, music
technology, and including employability opportunities. Her
activities have been measured through co-evaluation methods and
continuous contact with patients and service users. 


These collaborations have enabled her to draw on her experiences
to create context specific training and mentoring programmes. She
is currently developing a toolkit for musicians working in
healthcare, informed by her collaborative work over the years and
her research activities.


Georgina was awarded a Pre-doctoral Local Authority Fellowship by
the NIHR, as a  Director of Training and Development
Research for Live Music Now, working in partnership with the
University of Liverpool to investigate the influence of
non-clinical music interventions on mental health.


 


She currently works in close collaboration with The Liverpool
Centre for Health, Art, Society and Environment (CHASE) at the
University of Liverpool aiming to foster critical inquiry,
dialogue and creativity to build new knowledge about enabling
creative communities through music collaboration and cross-sector
partnerships. As part of this collaboration, she has been granted
a new Community Innovation Practitioner (CIP) award funded by the
AHRC to investigate how collaborations between academics and
partners from across different sectors can work to benefit health
and wellbeing.


 


Awards and Honorary Fellowship


·         05/07/2022:
Festival of Learning Awards: Winner of the President’s Award.
Music and Mental Health Programme at the Life Rooms, Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic, Lead musician


·         01/02/2021:
Liverpool City Region Culture and Creativity Awards: Winner of
the Impact Award on Health and Wellbeing Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic, Lead Musician


·         01/05/2019:
Winner of the Merseyside Woman of the Year in the category of
Arts, Culture and Media


·         01/03/2016: NHS
Award in Health and Care - Certificate of Recognition for
Commitment to learning in Health and Care


·         01/09/2011:
University of Liverpool Honorary Fellowship, Music and Wellbeing


·         01/09/2010: NHS
Positive achievement Award in Mental Health