CIMTR Public Lecture: The development and application of the Music Engagement Scale (MES)

Join us online to hear from Dr Alan Turry and Dr Anna Palumbo about current research initiatives at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University (NYU), with a focus on the development and application of the Music Engagement Scale (MES), a recently published instrument designed to measure engagement in music-making during therapy sessions.

The presentation will discuss how the MES emerged from the clinical and research traditions of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and its relevance for both practice and quantitative research.

Dr Turry and Dr Palumbo will additionally present initial findings evaluating social motor synchrony during music therapy for autistic children using wearable sensors. These findings demonstrate feasibility for evaluating continuous responses to music playing, as a potential mechanism of change in social communication.

Finally, they will present results evaluating the physiological and neural responses to music improvisation. Findings demonstrate increased reward and motor responses during improvisation with live accompaniment, as compared to playing conditions without improvisation and live accompaniment. These findings support the intrinsic motivation of musically responsive playing between a client and therapist

Speakers

Dr Alan Turry, DA, LCAT, MT-BC is a music therapist, educator, and researcher specialising in improvisational music therapy. Former Managing Director of the Nordoff-Robbins Center and current Program Director at NYU Steinhardt, his work advances clinical practice, research, and training in therapeutic musical interaction and relational engagement.

Dr Anna Palumbo, PhD, LCAT, MT-BC is research manager at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy and adjunct faculty in the Departments of Psychology and Music Therapy at NYU. Her research examines music therapy in neurorehabilitation and child development with support from the National Institutes of Health and the NeuroArts BluePrint Initiative.

This event is part of the CIMTR Public Lecture Series 2025-26.