WHY, WHEN AND HOW WAS PMF STARTED?
Pacific Music Foundation was started as a non-profit organization in 2005. Our mission statement is to facilitate music that soothes.

WHAT ARE PMF’S LONG-TERM GOALS?
Our long term goals are to secure facilitation of music that soothes through development of programs in music instruction, language instruction, dance appreciation (especially dance/motion therapy) and worldwide cultural exchange activities.

WHAT ARE SOME PRIOR AND CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Our first musical activity was singing at Castle Hospital, Hale Ku’ike (a rest home located in lower Nuuanu) as well as a Kupuna Hale in Waimanalo. Prior to formal inception of Pacific Music Foundation, Mr. Hussey was invited to organize and present a workshop in Music Therapy at Castle Hospital. This invitation was based on documented work in music Mr. Hussey had previously accomplished at Castle Hospital. Our facilities presentations were reduced in order to satisfy other musical initiatives and address organizational issues. We have also played in several different venues including Merrie Monarch, where our music was received quite well by everyone. Our first full-length concert was held at Mission Memorial Auditorium on May 4, 2006. We have raised funds to support a trip to Alaska this July, 2006, to participate in a folk festival. One of the reasons Alaskan planners coordinate these festivals is to bring Hawaiian music and dance to the growing community of Hawaiians living in Alaska. Pacific Music Foundation’s involvement with promotion of ukulele has been significant. We have already made several mainland appearances to support workshops and performances

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF SOME PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS?
To date, Pacific Music Foundation’s services to community have reached a minimum of 250 youth. The number of adults we’ve influenced through music and instruction exceeds 4500. Though our “clients” have come from Hawaii, various states on the mainland, Alaska, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Canada and Germany, a significant majority are local and native Hawaiians. Students have departed our workshops determined to work toward proficiency goals we’ve established jointly. Those who have experienced our music leave in awe and appreciation of “nahenahe” stylings of Hawaiian music. Most importantly, kupuna have raved, tapped their feet, smiled, relaxed themselves to slumber, sung with us, clapped their hands, danced and even prayed with us for guidance and strength to promote our mission.

WHAT DOES PMF SEEK TO CHANGE OR IMPROVE?
Scientific research as well as empirical information gathered over centuries indicate with certainty that music has the capability to soothe and even heal. Seventy universities on the mainland have degree programs in music therapy, so we are well-aware of music therapy’s capabilities. Many hospitals on the mainland utilize specially recorded music in their neo-natal care units to soothe newborns. This same kind of technology is practiced in Europe as well. If music for therapy were to be similarly practiced in Hawaii, so many benefits would accrue. Hawaii is blessed to have so many people who love music and enjoy performance ----- and music therapy would be a wonderful means of permitting interests to flourish, whether through education, performance or listening.

WHO ARE PMF’s BENEFICIARIES?
Pacific Music Foundation’s primary beneficiaries are communities and citizens . We provide Native Hawaiians special consideration and deserved recognition by using the music they developed since it so readily portrays those values and disciplines which give music therapy its wonderful integrity. The application of our work does not presume there is a problem, but promises it can take a person in almost any state and enhance that person’s sense of calm.

DOES PMF HAVE ANY PARTNER AGENCIES?
We are currently working with a music therapist from Germany in an attempt to structure a memorandum of understanding permitting exchange of information with Europe and Hawaii. We have begun work with the State of Hawaii to use music to create cultural exchange with China. We will continue to work closely with Dr. Arthur Harvey, a recently retired University of Hawaii music professor who is world-renowned in the field of music for therapy. Through board chairmanship, we also work in close coordination with Sounding Joy Music Therapy, Inc, whose specialty is the practice of clinical music therapy. The Ukulele Guild of Hawaii was started by individuals who shared a common interest in making ukulele and guitars. We currently do several joint projects with this guild and help them promote quality instruments made in Hawaii. There have been three instances of partnership with the City of Honolulu to sponsor two concerts and one workshop in promotion of music therapy’s benefits. Numerous times we have partnered with Castle Hospital, Hale Ku’ike and Waimanalo Health Center to permit their clients opportunities to experience music that soothes. On a trip to Alaska in July, we’ve partnered with the State of Alaska and two Hawaiian Clubs in Anchorage to provide them music that soothes.

WHAT ARE SOME ACTIVITIES YOU ARE PLANNING?
Our initial objective is to recruit people to our organization to become students of “music that soothes”. By training these people to help us take our music into hospitals, care homes and other client community organizations, we develop more reach and continue to grow those benefits we seek for the Hawaiian community. As we do this, we also develop expertise in developing strategies to preserve/enhance our culture while simultaneously promoting cultural exchange worldwide. The music we develop gives us opportunities to educate our Hawaiian people to the benefits inherent in clinical music therapy and we are thereby able to make referrals to certified music therapists. We’ve also begun preliminary planning to institute a program of instruction in the Hawaiian language with an emphasis in writing poetry. This will enable Hawaiians to continue to develop a facility for artistic expression of our history, culture or folklore. We seek to develop this poetry so we can then make good use of our musical backgrounds and use these works to develop original music compositions. In so doing, we enable meaningful education in the arts at a time when diminishing dollars are reducing arts education in schools. In our Hawaiian culture, hula is very much tied to our music. Pacific Music Foundation is well-aware of meaningful, empirical research which documents several positive results of dance therapy. We will structure a program of hula instruction which includes the benefits of dance therapy. The popularity and benefits dancers accrue from hula will be enhanced through education in therapeutic aspects of dance.