When Music Becomes Healing

When Music Becomes Healing

A Student-Led Collective Rooted in Empathy

By Ava Silva Costa, Founder, Arturo Healing Hearts arturohealinghearts.org

Music possesses the ability to alter a space before a single word is uttered. It can calm someone’s breathing, lessen anxiety, or remind someone that they are not confronting their day alone. This conviction is at the core of Arturo Healing Hearts—a student-led program I founded that delivers live solo music into healthcare facilities throughout New Jersey. What originated as one student with a violin and a longing to help has developed into a collective initiative shaped by compassion, purpose, and the gentle resilience of young musicians who want their craft to represent something beyond their talent and performance.

The Narrative of Arturo Healing Hearts—How Music Reshapes Both Patients and Youth Musicians

Arturo Healing Hearts began during a summer when I felt compelled to utilize my musicianship differently. I did not realize what it could turn into; I merely knew that music had forever served as a source of comfort for me, and I hoped it could bring solace to someone else. My initial visit to Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch validated it; even a brief soft selection played at a doorway could alter the emotional mood of a room.

Today our student volunteers perform routinely in oncology units, infusion rooms, cancer pavilions, and lobbies. These sessions are not concerts in the conventional sense. There is no applause or standing ovation, no set list, and no spotlight. Instead, a young musician provides a few brief moments of soft sound to someone navigating through a challenging time. Patients often shut their eyes, loved ones sometimes lean in more closely to listen, and medical staff stop briefly, just long enough to take a breath.

These moments are modest, but they are significant reminders that music offers calm and closeness when it is needed the most. At the same time, the effect it has on young musicians is profound. Performing in a medical environment requires emotional awareness, introspection, and the skill to interpret a room softly and respectfully. Many students tell me that performing for patients has changed how they interpret their own instrument; that it seems less like a task and more like an expression of compassion. They master how to listen differently, to react with attentiveness, and to perceive their own musicianship as something capable of softening someone’s state of mind. It transforms them as artists, but even more as people.

How Our Youth Can Explore Their Own Path to Volunteerism through Music

Even though Arturo Healing Hearts grew from a deeply personal journey, I hope our youth feel inspired to explore how their personal musicianship could help their own communities in ways that feel genuine to them. Every school, every ensemble, and every community-based environment possesses its own distinct rhythm, so whichever initiative students create will organically take on a distinct form. Above all, what’s most important is focusing on the needs around you and letting your own strengths guide your service in volunteerism.

Some students might discover opportunities within their own academic institution’s music department or Tri-M® chapter, others through community-based organizations, local centers, or wellness programs. Many will realize that significant impact can originate simply by recognizing the place in which music might provide solace and being ready to offer it. There is no one individual template for this type of work; the most enduring initiatives develop out of the integrity, empathy, and creativity of the students who lead them as well as the communities they support.

The Function of Tri-M® and the Teachers Who Guide Us

I am grateful to be a member of the Tri-M® Music Honor Society at Ranney School in Tinton Falls, where I have grown, guided by the mentoring of my teacher and chapter advisor, Dr. Sobieski. Her leadership has influenced both my musicianship and the evolution of Arturo Healing Hearts, and her perspective as an educator contributes substance and meaning to this service work.

“Arturo Healing Hearts gives young musicians a rare opportunity to experience the true purpose of music—to connect, to comfort, and to serve. Ava leads with heart, reminding students that even a few notes, played with care, can offer peace and human connection in the most difficult moments. As her teacher and the advisor for Tri-M Music Honor Society Chapter 5275, I have seen how this project extends music education far beyond the classroom, showing students that music is not only an art form, but a powerful means of empathy, presence, and healing.” — Dr. Sobieski

Tri-M inspires leadership through service, academic achievement, and music, principles and ideals that align naturally with this initiative. The program has provided me not merely with the support to pursue this work, but also the confidence that students can have a true and lasting impact on the world surrounding them.

An Initiative Built on Heart

Arturo Healing Hearts has shown me that service does not need to be grand in order to be impactful. It can start with one individual musician, a single space, and a single moment of connection. Music cannot alter a diagnosis, but it can create a softer, kinder day, a more uplifting moment, or an opportunity for a patient to feel seen—that matters most and holds the deepest significance.

I am profoundly grateful to NAfME for granting me the opportunity to tell my story and for championing and advocating for young musicians across the country. My hope is that every student who reads this feels encouraged and empowered to listen closely to their own community, believes in the worth of their own musical ability, and allows empathy and compassion to guide the path ahead of them.

Thank you for reading and for everything you do to support music and arts education and student leaders across our nation.

View a brief interview recorded by the Central Jersey Music Educators Association (CJMEA) about Arturo Healing Hearts.

About the author:

Ava Silva Costa is a high school sophomore, violinist, and Tri-M® Music Honor Society member at Ranney School who believes music has a responsibility beyond performance. She founded Arturo Healing Hearts to create meaningful service opportunities for student musicians by bringing live, quiet instrumental music into New Jersey hospitals. Ava performs regularly in clinical and healthcare settings, where music can offer calm, dignity, and human connection during treatment. Her work has been recognized by the Central Jersey Music Educators Association and RWJBarnabas Health. Inspired by her experiences in clinical environments, Ava is interested in biomedical engineering and in understanding how human-centered, non-invasive approaches, including music, can support healing alongside medical care.

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