Patricia Ann Repar

Repar’s work as a composer includes the writing of contemporary chamber music, intermedia works, electronic soundscapes, and the most recent and innovative ‘song-story’, Intricate arrangements of jazz standards for voice, piano, story, and electronics; the making of short films; the design of original instruments and installations in medical environments; and the exploration of health and healing through the arts. Dr. Repar has been featured as guest composer, performer, educator, and clinician in various parts of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South America, Europe, southern Africa, Thailand, and Australia. Combining her studies in music composition and creative process with research in palliative care, expressive arts therapies, sound healing, and the medical humanities, Dr. Repar founded Arts-in-Medicine: Healing and the Humanities at the University of New Mexico in 2002. Since that time she has directed and ‘composed’ the program as a ‘living installation’ with five branches: clinical service, education, research, community engagement, and international collaboration. Musicians, dancers, writers, visual artists and body workers engage patients, their families, and healthcare workers throughout UNM Hospitals in creative encounters of a rejuvenating, transformative, and educational nature. As a professor in the departments of music and internal medicine, Repar teaches music composition and directs the graduate healing arts certificate program. As a licensed massage therapist and professional musician she works at the bedside of seriously and terminally ill patients. For further information please see https://finearts.unm.edu/arts-inmedicine/