Alan Turry

Alan Turry has earned his B.A., M.A. and DA degrees in Music Therapy from New York University. He is the Director of the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy as well as researcher, senior clinician, level III trainer/educator and supervisor for advanced trainees and therapists, and teaches clinical improvisation in the NYU Graduate Music Therapy Program. Dr. Turry is on the editorial board of Music and Medicine and Music Therapy Perspectives, and is a reviewer for Voices, A World Forum of Music Therapy. His published research in music and medicine has focused on the psychological effects of musical elements. In his doctoral research he examined the relationship between lyrics and music in improvised songs that were created in the context of music therapy with a woman diagnosed with cancer.

Dr. Turry is a visiting lecturer at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre in London, and visiting professor at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College, Lesley University, the University of Lisbon in Portugal, and Senzoku College, Japan. He has been a guest lecturer at Anna Maria College, Berklee College of Music, and the California Institute for Integral Studies. Dr. Turry was a keynote speaker at the 8th World Congress of Music Therapy in Hamburg and the 13th World Congress in Seoul, Korea.

Dr. Turry is the Principal Investigator on key research projects at Nordoff-Robbins, and was the driving force behind the first Steinhardt Challenge Art & Culture Grant awarded to the Center. The award supports a pilot study to determine the effectiveness Nordoff-Robbins music therapy on the development of communication and social interaction in young children with early developmental disabilities. In 2012, he received the AMTA Arthur Flagler Fultz Research Fund Award to support the collaboration between the Nordoff-Robbins Center and Rusk Rehabilitation Institute at NYU Medical Center to develop and research an integrated music therapy/occupational therapy stroke rehabilitation program.

Selected Publications

Birnbaum, J., Turry, A., Kandler, Z., Aslan, M., & Hoi Yan Fu, J. (in press). Music Therapy with Autistic Children: Creating an Intersubjective Field of Play through Improvisation. Psychoanalytic Inquiry.

Turry, A. (2018). Actually, music therapy does work. Music and Medicine, 10(2), 113-114.

Raghavan, P., Geller, D., Guererro, N., Aluru, V., Eimicke, J.P., Teresi, J.A., Ogedegbe, G., Palumbo, A., & Turry, A. (2016). Music upper limb therapy – integrated: An enriched collaborative approach for stroke rehabilitation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10:498. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00498.

Guerrero, N., Marcus, D., & Turry, A. (2016). Poised in the creative now: Principles of
Nordoff-Robbins music therapy. In J. Edwards, (Ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Music
Therapy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Guerrero, N., Marcus, D., & Turry, A. (2015). Nordoff-Robbins music therapy. In B. Wheeler, (Ed.). Music Therapy Handbook. New York, N.Y.: Guilford Press.

Guerrero, N. & Turry, A. (2012). Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy: An expressive and dynamic approach for young children on the autism spectrum. In P. Kern & M.E. Humpal, Early Childhood Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Developing Potential in Young Children and their Families (pp. 130-144). London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Hartley, M., Turry, A., & Raghavan, P. (2010). The role of music and music therapy in aphasia rehabilitation. Music and Medicine (2) 4, 235-242.

Guerrero, N., Marcus, D., & Turry, A. (2009). Integrating Musical and Psychological Thinking: The relationship between music and words in clinically improvised songs. Music and Medicine (1) 2, 106-116.

Turry, A. & Turry, A.E. (1999). The use of improvised song for children and adults with cancer. In C. Dileo, Music Therapy and Medicine: Theoretical and Clinical Applications (p. 167-177). Silver Spring, MD: American Music Therapy Association.

Turry, A. (1998). Transference and Countertransference. In K. E. Bruscia (Ed.), The dynamics of music psychotherapy (pp. 161-212). Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Press.