Healing the self
Eileen Hadidian is a professional recorder and baroque flute player. She received her B.A. in Music from the American University of Beirut (Lebanon) and her M.A. and Doctorate in Early Music from Stanford University. As well as serving on the music faculty at Mills College (Oakland), she has appeared in concert and taught workshops throughout the Western United States. She directed the Hausmusik concert series in Albany (CA) for twenty years. C.F. Peters, Indiana University Press, Cambridge University Press, Dovehouse and Tree Editions have published her scholarly work and editions of music.
Eileen is founder and artistic director of Healing Muses, a non-profit organization that brings soothing music to Bay Area medical centers. Her work with healing music grew out of her own cancer experience. She used music for her own healing, and began to play for other cancer patients, exploring ways in which music can be used to soothe critically and chronically ill people. Eileen has recorded five CDs on the Healing Muses label, and her work with healing music has been featured in The American Recorder, Early Music America, ARTAFacts (American Recorder Teachers’ Association), Yoga Journal, The Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, and the March 2008 issue of the San Francisco Medical Society Journal. Besides recorder and harp, she also plays the Celtic harp in the medical centers Healing Muses serves.
Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner named Eileen Albany Woman of the Year for 2010. She and 13 other women, each representing once city in Skinner’s district, were chosen because they had gone above and beyond the call of duty to make a significant difference in their communities.
Having grown up in the multi-cultural milieu of Lebanon, special interests in music involve studying what was being composed and performed outside the mainstream of Western Europe, and she has developed numerous workshop topics and concert programs exploring music in Spanish America, French Canada, Ireland and Scotland, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries, as well as music by women.
In addition to her musical projects, she is trained as a breast cancer peer support volunteer and has counseled cancer patients, helping them navigate the medical system and become informed and pro-active in their care.
Eileen’s hobbies include immersing herself in novels set in different cultures, learning languages, yoga, gentle hikes, gardening, international fairs, foreign movies, and trying out new ethnic restaurants.
