Music Mends Minds & UCLA

Exploring music’s role in resolving conflict.

Music Mends Minds named Tommy among the mentors for its collaboration with UCLA’s Schools of Music and Neuroscience. Its winter 2025 newsletter describes an initiative exploring musical exchange and expression as tools for conflict resolution. Tommy was listed alongside Bruce Victor, John Fitzgerald and Christopher Bailey.

Musical exchange across generations

The winter 2025 newsletter described a collaboration with UCLA’s music and neuroscience schools to examine musical expression as a means of conflict resolution. Music Mends Minds presented it as an extension of its work to a multigenerational audience, connecting shared music with its interest in peace.

A team with different experiences

Tommy’s songwriting and peace work sat alongside the experience of psychiatrist Bruce Victor, percussionist and workshop facilitator John Fitzgerald, and World Health Organization Arts & Health Lead Christopher Bailey. The newsletter identified them as mentors; it did not describe a single concert or a programme of public bookings.

Hear Tommy’s perspective

Music Mends Minds also features Tommy in its Ask the Expert series under the title A Language for Peace. The episode introduces his work as a songwriter, performer and mediator, and his continuing use of music in conflict-resolution projects. It offers a way to explore the ideas behind the collaboration in Tommy’s own voice.