Mark Burnett joined MacPhail’s Music Therapy faculty in 2019. His practice and approach to music and music therapy is centered around the individual experience with a focus on happiness. This requires a large toolkit of skills and methods which produce achievement of goals, objectives, and outcomes. His experience from 30 years of practice informs humble work toward the opportunity for growth, and a compassionate focus toward others.
Foundations of practice come from receiving a degree in music and music therapy from Radford University with board certification / concurrent from 1992. His experience is reinforced through a significant range of specialized training in sensory, neurologic, developmental, educational, behavioral health, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Mark’s skills are recognized through national and international presentations in music therapy and performances in various genres of music and theater on bass, euphonium, guitar, piano, trombone and voice. He has composed music for various artists, theater, film, and special education instruction.
His approach is humanistic, often supporting the discovery of music comfortably, with attention to the person and process experience. This approach helps create wonder, potential, and a purposeful result such as learning a lifelong skill through improved attention and sensory regulation; both strengths that go beyond the music and open up new possibilities. Sometimes these experiences translate into learning to walk, or move through music interventions that generalize to everyday skills and activities which can optimize functionality. Frequently music and music therapy sessions involve empowerment through musical communication and expression that connects, develops and validates growth and healing.
