Music to Our Ears

Ava and Cordell Haymon have donated $1.2 million to establish a music therapy program at LSU

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Later, Ava Leavell Haymon would convince herself that what she had seen at her mother’s retirement home in Jackson, Mississippi, couldn’t be true. On her visits there, Haymon would play piano for her mother and the other residents. (“Hymns, Jerry Lee Lewis style,” she remembered.) One woman “had a feeding tube and was virtually in a coma,” said Haymon, but to the tune of “Amazing Grace,” she lifted her head and sang four verses. “I’d decided I made that up,” said Haymon. 

But recent years have led Haymon to further studies and stories of art’s power against illness—ranging from Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia to experiences of her daughter-in-law, mezzo-soprano Sonja Bruszauskas, while visiting pediatric cancer wards at Methodist hospitals around Houston. Now Haymon has put her faith back in music therapy—and $1.2 million too. Alongside her husband, Cordell, and their children and spouses, Haymon has donated the money to the LSU College of Music and Dramatic Arts to fund an endowed chair in music therapy.

[Read this: Louisiana's Poet Laureate: Ava Leavell Haymon.]

The gift, which may be matched by $800,000 in additional funding from the LSU Board of Regents, is tied to LSU’s new $1.5 billion Fierce for the Future Campaign, the most substantial higher education fundraiser in state history. Haymon, who earned her master’s in English from LSU in 1967 and served as Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2013–2015, said her family discussed the gift for a year and a half before landing upon music therapy. “We’re all musicians—either professionals or pretty good amateurs,” she said. Todd Queen, dean of LSU CMDA and a family friend, had previously worked with a music therapy program as department chair at Colorado State University. “We knew he knew how to make it work,” said Haymon. 

[You might like: Laura Larsen designs art tours for people with dementia.]

She’s confident that a well-funded music therapy program will bestow benefits across multiple departments and outside the university too, whether through interdisciplinary courses, internships at local hospitals, or new career options for the city’s artists. “I’m so conscious of how many writers and musicians are overtrained for this work but trained for so few jobs,” said Haymon. 

“It’s good on both sides, for people getting the degree and for patients too,” she added. “There’s way more to healing than getting the right pill in your mouth.” Visit fierceforthefuturecampaign.org for details. Sonja Bruszauskas will perform with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra on May 2 at First Baptist Church. brso.org.