In 2016, the Bilkent Faculty of Music and Performing Arts and the Fonksiyon Manuel Terapi ve Rehabilitasyon clinic agreed to collaborate on the development of a program to be called “Performance Health for Musicians.” Last week the program was introduced by Assoc. Dean Kağan Korad of the faculty and Dr. Erinç Karacehennem Sabuncu of the clinic, at a press meeting held at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts.
Musicians, they explained, may face many occupational health problems, including disabling pain. The Performance Health for Musicians program is intended to help them stay healthy and avoid future injuries and disability. Through the program, both musicians and medical practitioners will be able to learn more about the prevention and care of such injuries. It is designed for professional musicians, music educators who wish to gain an understanding of disability prevention and the management of student ailments, and healthcare professionals interested in developing a performing arts medicine program or expanding their strategies for the treatment of music-related injuries.
According to a study of more than 4,000 professional musicians (members of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians in North America), 84 percent of those playing string instruments have at least one problem with their shoulders, hands or fingers, and 76 percent of these have suffered pain that prevents them from performing.
The Performance Health for Musicians program is the first such initiative in Turkey. Dean Korad highlighted its innovative nature, saying, “We can take pride in the fact that this interdisciplinary collaboration focused on musicians’ occupational health, which can be considered a relatively new field worldwide, has now been initiated in our country.”