Healing Through Harmony gives back to the community through melodies

For members of the Healing Through Harmony club, music is not just a pastime, but a way to give back to their community. The group’s goal is to promote healing and positivity in Providence’s community spaces through the sharing and performance of music.

As a service club, Healing Through Harmony often visits and performs in “places where people are in the healing process,” such as assisted living facilities, hospitals and prisons, said Emma Lo ’25, one of the group’s outreach coordinators.

The club partners with venues in the community, including Miriam Hospital and HopeHealth, where monthly performances take place. Before each event, voluntary registrations are opened for students interested in performing.

“We spend a lot of time performing and trying to go into places of healing, but also trying to spread healing. The main goal is to spread the goal of improving health, whether in (senior homes) or here on campus,” said Rohan Panjwani ’28, community engagement director of Healing Through Harmony.

Athena Deng ’27, the club’s public relations chair, became involved in music-related community service in high school and joined Healing Through Harmony after seeing that the club shared the same values ​​of nurturing through music. As a student musician, she believes Healing Through Harmony offers its members a more communal, light-hearted and social perspective when making music.

“I feel like as a classical musician you’re just isolated,” Deng said. “A lot of times you don’t really realize how impactful (sharing music) can be…Seemingly small actions can really impact and help other people.”

Healing Through Harmony’s performances also give its members a sense of fulfillment and gratitude by showing them how their music can have a meaningful impact on the people around them.

“To come to places of healing and be welcomed into people’s lives when they are so vulnerable… and to be able to do something to make their lives a little easier means a lot,” said Lo, who was originally because of her Healing Through Harmony came with a passion for the intersection between music, health and well-being.

Healing Through Harmony hopes to host more open performances at Brown and increase member engagement by building closer relationships with local venues and institutions to further its mission of increasing access to music. Next week the club will launch its pilot program: Jolly Jam Week. The week-long program of planned festive performances aims to spread holiday cheer among students during finals week. The club would like to make Jolly Jam Week a recurring event that future members can continue to organize.

“We all appreciate how much value we can bring to people’s lives just by performing for them,” Panjwani said.

Additional reporting by Ayana Ahuja