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Minnesota Public Radio, Mayo Clinic to Offer Classical Relaxation to Hospital Patients
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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Patients at Mayo Clinic hospitals in Rochester; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix will be able to relax to a custom blend of classical music provided by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), beginning Sept. 1.
A new agreement calls for MPR’s national programming division, American Public Media (APM) — the largest provider of classical music programming in North America — to supply up to 17 hours of streaming classical music that Mayo Clinic can distribute at no charge to patients and visitors in patient rooms.
MPR initiated discussions with Mayo Clinic as part of an outreach program. The resulting collaboration will promote healing and comfort for patients. The music supplied by MPR will feature selections from the Relax Stream on APM’s YourClassical.org.
Research indicates that music can aid healing in many ways, such as improving pain control, reducing need for pain medication, improving quality of life, reducing anxiety, and lowering blood pressure.
“Among the various art forms, music is the best studied and the most convincingly demonstrated to provide health benefits to patients,” says Paul D. Scanlon, M.D., a pulmonologist and medical director of the Mayo Clinic Dolores Jean Lavins Center for Humanities in Medicine. “We are delighted to join with MPR to bring high-quality classical music programming to our patients and visitors.”
“Our mission at MPR is to enrich the mind and nourish the spirit, enhancing the lives of our audiences,” says Brian Newhouse, managing director of classical programming at Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media. “Curating gorgeous music for the benefit of medical patients, in collaboration with such an esteemed institution like Mayo Clinic, delivers on that mission in a whole new way for MPR and is a joy to do.”
MEDIA CONTACT: Deb Anderson, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu
The Dolores Jean Lavins Center for Humanities in Medicine supports Mayo Clinic’s primary value — the needs of the patient come first — by integrating the arts and other expressions of human culture into the healing environment. The center collaborates with about 30 arts organizations, including the Guthrie Theater, Rochester Art Center and Rochester Public Library, to provide access to music, theater and dance performances; visual art exhibits; workshops; lectures; and art programs.
Mayo hospital patients will be able to access the Relax Stream through Mayo’s Video on Demand TV service on the Arizona, Florida and Minnesota campuses, and Mayo’s TV Humanities Channel, which airs concerts, theater and lectures, in Rochester.
Compositions by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others will be the focus of the MPR-provided soundtrack. Only the title of the song, the composer and an identifier, “This is the Relax Stream, from YourClassical.org,” will appear on the TV screen. The audio will contain underwriting and sponsorship acknowledgments, but no fundraising or promotional messages.
About MPR
Minnesota Public Radio® operates a 45-station radio network serving nearly all of Minnesota and parts of surrounding states. Reaching 900,000 listeners each week, MPR and its three regional services—MPR News, Classical MPR and The Current®—produce programming for radio, digital and live audiences. Programs produced by MPR’s national programming division, American Public Media®, reach 19 million listeners via nearly 1,000 radio stations nationwide each week. APM is one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio programming in the world, with a portfolio that includes A Prairie Home Companion®, BBC World Service, Marketplace®, and the leading classical music programming in the nation. YourClassical, APM’s lifestyle classical music stream, packages classical music in an unconventional and innovative way with streams suited for life’s biggest moments and everyday situations. For more information on MPR, visit minnesotapublicradio.org. For more information on APM, visit americanpublicmedia.org. Source: Data are copyright Nielsen Audio. Data are estimates only.
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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to clinical practice, education and research, providing expert, whole-person care to everyone who needs healing. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic or https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/.
