A lifeline through music
New documentary film looks at an orchestra for people dealing with mental illness
Ronald Braunsteinwas destined for a sterling career as a classical music conductor when itwas abruptly derailed bymental illness. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Braunstein had made his debut at Lincoln Center at age 20 and three years later became the first American to win the prestigiousHerbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition, the socalled Olympics of conducting.
The prize led to invitations to conduct major orchestras, and at first everything he did “turned to gold,” he said. But it all came to a halt when his emotional life crumbled.
As he recalls in “OrchestratingChange,” an inspiring new documentary about hiswork with musicians living with mental illness, he realized as a young boy that something inside himwas not right. “I would get very excited and then very, very sad,” he said. But not until age 30, when a crippling emotional crisis led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, did he knowwhat his problemwas.
“Itwas a very dark time, and I had no one to help me,” Braunstein said of the period after his diagnosis. “Everyone in the business abandoned me.”
Yet hewas determined to conduct, and eventually was hired by Caroline Whiddon, then executive director of an orchestra in Burlington, Vermont, whose own career as a French horn player had been sidelined by disabling panic attacks, anxiety and depression.
Despite medication for bipolar disorder, Braunstein didn’t last a year on the job before he again unraveled emotionally. Once stabilized medically, he proposed that instead of being judged and discriminated against, he form his own orchestra where he could be himself and recruit people like him, said Whiddon, who by then had become his wife. Together, they created a performance vehicle— the
Me2/Orchestra he instructs and conducts— that provides unstinting support and a new lease on life for mentally ill young men and women who play instruments. Several participants have been able to move on to more conventional careers in music.
“I never knew an orchestra could be such a vehicle for change,” Whiddon said.
The orchestra, which anyone with or without mental illness can join, now has three branches, one in Burlington, another in Boston and a third inManchester, NewHampshire, in addition to two chamber music ensembles in Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine. The expansion required hiring additional personnel who share Braunstein’s philosophy, among them a conductor for the Burlington orchestra, Kim Diehnelt, who received a diagnosis of autism after many years of wondering why she never fit in. The groups perform by invitation in diverse venues, including schools, hospitals, recovery centers and prisons, aswell as in
Boston’s South Station on Bach’s birthday.
In addition to performance fees, theMe2 groups are supported by contributions from individuals, corporations, foundations and theMassachusetts Department ofMental Health, Whiddon said.
The depiction of Braunstein’s life and the rewardingwork he nowdoes with otherwise marginalized people is a poignant message that people with mental illness should not, in effect, be thrown under the bus. Rather than confine them to a very restricted, heavily medicated existence that drains them and their families of any hope for a rewarding life, creativeways are needed to engage them in activities that capitalize on their talents.
Braunstein and Whiddonwere invited to describe theirwork to a national meeting of theKennedy Forum, founded in 2013 by Patrick J. Kennedy, a son of Sen. EdwardM. Kennedy, to promote better treatment, policies and programs for people with mental illness and addiction. Kennedy, a former Rhode Island congressman who left politics after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and addiction, told the forum that the message Me2 had created through its orchestrawas “the sort of powerful message that we need for society to change their attitudes towards these illnesses and the people who are suffering fromthese illnesses.”
Rick Soshensky, a music therapist in Kingston, NewYork, who plays instruments with people with serious mental health problems, described howBraunstein’s approach can help the mentally ill. Unlike verbal communication, he told me, “music involves a different part of the brain and a differentway to interfacewith theworld. It’s outside the cognitive realm. It gets the cognitive part out of theway and gets the intuitive part engaged, the part of the brain that is not damaged.”
To the performers in the Me2/Orchestra, Braunstein is more than a conductor. He’s a friend and a mentor, aswell as an example of what can happen when a person with mental illness is accepted unconditionally and treated with dignity and respect.
This approach to people with mental illness,
Soshensky said, can foster growth and self-esteem that can carry over to other aspects of a person’s life and foster a fuller life experience. “It helps others start to see a whole other dimension of the person that wasn’t there before,” he said.“We all need to feel ‘I’m good at this.’ ”
It is just this kind of musical magic that Braunstein offers to the members of theMe2/Orchestra. For example, Dylan, a double bass player featured in the film, said that before joining the orchestra he hadn’t left the house for months. He’d also spentweeks alone in thewoods where hewas hearing voices. Though given a diagnosis of schizophrenia, he told people hewas a drug addict because he thought that was better accepted than mental illness.
His mother, Ann, said that being in the orchestra “has changed his life. It’s given him a lifeline. He didn’t have one before.” Among other accomplishments, it gave Dylan the confidence he needed to be an erstwhile street performer.
AsWilliam Congreve wrote in a poem in 1697, “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.”