Aufatmen – Arts for Long Covid

Prof. Dr. Oliver Peter Graber (JAM MUSIC LAB Private University)

The pilot project "Aufatmen – Singen gegen Long Covid" www.aufatmen-austria.eu is an art-based intervention strategy and offers the possibility of singing as well as overall artistic experience for people affected by Long Covid.

The six-week sing-training consists of active parts ("do it/sing yourself" with one one-hour training session per week) and receptive, specially tailored and artistically implemented components (videos, audio files, …). Due to the outstanding legal situation in Austria, with a music therapy law, the project represents a novel fusion of the art-based concept Singing for Lung Health (SLH), professional music therapy and the knowledge support by pulmonary specialists. The program is also characterized by its high artistic quality, as its standards are set by (a) internationally acclaimed artists partaking in this project and (b) acoustically as well as visually outstanding venues in Vienna, where the videos and recordings were produced. Of the participants, no previous musical knowledge was assumed or needed. The pilot project was accompanied by a clinical study in the form of a case report. It includes listings of the participants’ health status, their overall wellbeing and their musical preferences (revealed via questionnaires), all collected once at the beginning and once at the end. Included as further variables were lung function measurements of volunteers recruited from the pool of participants.

The lecture gives an overview of the project "Aufatmen", its current status and results, and summarizes the current situation in the Arts for Health sector in Austria.

Oliver Peter Graber ist international als Komponist, Pianist und Dramaturg mit Fokus auf den Sektor Interdisziplinarität tätig. Zusammen mit seiner künstlerischer Tätigkeit, die das Zentrum seines Interesses bildet, war er u.a. Dramaturg des Wiener Staatsballetts und lehrte an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien. Gegenwärtig leitet er (Fachbereich Musik) das "Forschungsinstitut für Musikmedizin mit Schwerpunkt Arts for Health" an der JAM Music Lab Private University in Wien, wo er auch Dekan der Fakultät Musik ist; beim Verein "Arts for Health Austria" - der gemeinnützigen Trägerorganisation des Projektes "Aufatmen" - fungiert er als Obfrau-Stellvertreter.