Alan Turry
Assistant Professor; Director of Music Therapy
Music and Performing Arts Professions
Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy
212-998-5158
Alan Turry, DA, LCAT, MT-BC, earned his Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees in Music Therapy from New York University. He is Assistant Professor and Director of Music Therapy at NYU Steinhardt and serves as Faculty Liaison to Steinhardt's Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy.
As the Principal Investigator on key research projects at Nordoff-Robbins, Dr. Turry has led the development of the Music Engagement Scale, a research and clinical instrument designed to measure the quality of a client’s engagement in music making. His current research includes an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Nordoff-Robbins Center and NYU’s Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL) examining social motor synchrony and social communication in autistic children, supported by a Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Award.
Dr. Turry is also a recipient of NYU Steinhardt’s Goddard Junior Faculty Fellowship Award. His fellowship research will investigate how Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy supports speech and language development in autistic children through the development of a curated longitudinal dataset integrating clinical, behavioral, and computational approaches. He was previously the recipient of the American Music Therapy Association’s Arthur Flagler Fultz Research Award in 2012, supporting collaboration between the Nordoff-Robbins Center and Rusk Rehabilitation Institute at NYU Medical Center on an integrated music therapy/occupational therapy stroke rehabilitation program.
Well known for his innovative contributions to the Nordoff-Robbins approach, including the integration of contemporary music styles, clinical improvisation and improvised songs, music psychotherapy, and community music therapy practice, Dr. Turry has conducted pioneering research on the improvisational process and the relationship between musical elements and the verbal-lyrical content of improvised songs. He has published numerous chapters and articles on contemporary developments in Nordoff-Robbins music therapy and is recognized nationally and internationally for his contributions to music therapy clinical practice, research, and training. He has taught and presented his work throughout Asia and Europe and was a visiting lecturer at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre in London. Dr. Turry serves on the editorial boards of leading music therapy journals and as a reviewer for Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.
Selected Publications
Turry, A., Palumbo, A., Low, M., Birnbaum, J., Turry, H., & Spellmann, M. (2026). The Music Engagement Scale: An instrument to measure engagement in music making. Journal of Music Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thag003
Birnbaum, J., Kandler, Z., Aslan, M., & Hoi Yan Fu, J., Turry, A. (2023). Music Therapy with Autistic Children: Creating an Intersubjective Field of Play through Improvisation. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 43:3, 232-246, DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2023.2185070.
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.
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 https://doi.org/10.47513/mmd.v1i2.23
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.