Grainge and Huffington Host Music + Health SummitSir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group (UMG), and Arianna Huffington, CEO, Thrive Global hosted the MUSIC + HEALTH summit in Los Angeles, in association with Havas Health. The focus of the event was exploring the direct relationships between music and health, discussing recent research that has documented music’s therapeutic and medical benefits, showcasing innovators integrating music into products and services devoted to fitness and wellbeing, and introducing some of the new applications of technology that are helping to harness it. 

The event brought together leading experts from across the fields of music, science, health & well-being, fitness and technology including legendary nine-time Grammy-winning producer, and recent author of ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being’ Rick Rubin, in conversation with Dean Willow Bay on Creativity, Music & Wellbeing. Panel discussions featured prominent voices from science and medicine including Dr. Lisa Miller, Dr. Daniel Levitin, Dr. Assal Habibi, Jaron Lanier and neurosurgeon and scholar Dr. Ali Rezai. Closing the event was a special conversation between Sir Lucian Grainge, Arianna Huffington and singer, businesswoman and actress Selena Gomez on music for mental health. 

Speaking at the event, Sir Lucian Grainge said, “Throughout my life, I have experienced countless examples of how music can change people’s mood, comfort them in times of emotional crisis, or even help them physically. At Universal, I wanted this powerful relationship between music and health to not simply be a series of anecdotal observations, I want it to be a key component of our strategy, so we can really put music to work in ways it has never been used before. As a company, we are fundamentally rooted in the belief that music is a powerful force for good, and now we have the science and technology—with AI and therapeutics and more— to help accelerate these developments. It really is one of the most interesting and exciting new frontiers for music.”

Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global said, “Music has always been a moving force throughout human history. And our goal with the conference was to move beyond anecdotes and highlight the science and the applications which confirm the power of music to impact our mental and physical health. We’re thrilled to partner with Universal Music Group to put this into practice by licensing Universal music for Thrive Reset, our 60-second stress reducing product that uses music and breathing to help move users from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system in just one minute. Universal’s catalog will make Thrive Resets more engaging, personalized and joyful to drive even greater behavior change through our platform, helping people reduce stress and connect each day with what they love about their lives. As we learned today from neuroscientists, historians, doctors and entrepreneurs, we’re just getting started with all of the ways we can leverage music, both for preventive health and to augment medical treatment, and I am looking forward to using today’s conference to accelerate this growing movement of music and health.” 

In recent years, UMG has led the industry in exploring creative and commercial opportunities for music to play an even greater role in health & well-being, licensing its catalog of music to more than 40+ companies across the field. Today UMG’s music is not only being used to soundtrack fitness, mental well-being, relaxation and meditation, but also harnessed to be used alongside treatment for a broad array of serious/chronic medical conditions including Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury recovery, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Parkinson’s, Anxiety, sleep and mental healthconditions, among others.

During the event, UMG announced a new partnership with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, that will see UMG become the exclusive music partner for their Thrive Reset stress reduction product featuring music and breathing. In 2016, Huffington launched Thrive to help individuals, companies, and communities improve their well-being and performance – and debunk the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success. Since then, Thrive has been working to bring its AI-powered behavior change technology platform and Thrive Microsteps – small, science-backed steps to improve health and productivity – to employees at more than 125 organizations in 140 countries, from frontline and call center workers to executives at multinational companies.

The day featured a presentation from MedRhythms co-founder and CEO Brian Harris, to discuss their product’s innovative usage of music as medicine, helping patients learn to walk again after debilitating strokes. Their InTandem device was recently listed with the FDA as the world's first prescription digital therapeutic product that uses music. In the device UMG recordings are played based on data that the service algorithm receives from sensors the patient wears on their body. The sensors monitor the user's gait and positioning and play the "right" music to fit each patient's current walking ability. 

During the event, UMG announced that it was licensing innovative digital therapeutic company soundBrilliance, providing selections from its catalog for use in closed clinical trials for music and health research. These trials will use music, psychology, & measurement techniques to create tools & exercises which empower people to better self-manage the fundamentals of health: emotional balance, fitness, quality sleep and pain control. UMG also introduced Sollos, its forthcoming music-centric wellness app that uses cognitive science and proprietary audio technology to support focus, relaxation and sleep.

The day featured a performance and conversation with Republic Records’ artist Chelsea Cutler, Breathing Session and performance from Decca Records’ Pianist and composer Chad Lawson and panel appearances from UMG partners including Apple Fitness +, Endel, Music Care, Universal Production Music, Thrive Reset and Havas Health’sWelltainment panel, a look at music’s power to help end the health equity crisis. 

UMG is not only the world-leader in music-based entertainment, but has a historical track record of technological, scientific and medical innovation, dating back to the beginning of the 20th Century. These include significant breakthroughs in the fields of sound recording, television, radar, computing and in medicine – most notably for the invention of the CT scanner, the pioneering X-Ray technology that heralded a new era in medical diagnostics. In 1979, in recognition for its impact to global health, EMI engineer Godfrey Hounsfield was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his role in its development.