Harmony Program

Harmony Project is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 that provides music education to 3,500 underserved children and youth in Los Angeles, California, USA. Harmony Project harnesses the transformative power of music to increase access to higher education for its students by removing systemic barriers to achievement through academic and social support. Students receive access to professional-grade musical instruments and high-quality instruction from trained musicians, as well as social, emotional, educational, and financial assistance. The organization's holistic approach to student success has resulted in impressive outcomes for students’ college acceptance and has awarded over $3,000,000 to more than 600 alumni. The organization has received recognition and support from the White House, the U.S. Department of Education, and has provided students with incredible performance opportunities.
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At the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan and Italy’s first center for medical research, the Fonds K supports a research project on “The effect of music on the maternal-fetal auditory-emotional cross-talk during the late fetal period”. When a pregnant woman speaks or sings, the melody and rhythm of her voice, transfer to the fetus through her body, carrying emotions. This maternal-fetal “dialogue” lies the neurodevelopmental foundations of a lifetime “medley” between cognition and emotion. The goal of our project is to understand how music, during pregnancy, can hallmark the footing of brain activity in the fetus, through fetal functional brain imaging. This project represents an important turning point for interlacing music with research and clinical interventions during pregnancy, aimed at safeguarding the cognitive and emotional tuning of any child further on in life.
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The Fonds K supports the University Hospital of Geneva in its work studying the brain development of premature babies stimulated by exposure to a sound environment - both musical and vocal - specifically created with a view to develop a personalised medical approach. The research is aimed at understanding the mechanisms of brain plasticity and development in the presence of music, enabling Professor Petra Hüppi and her team to do more, at the right time, according to the individual needs of these little ones.
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