Serap Bastepe-Gray
Dr. Serap Bastepe-Gray, a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory, left a medical career to become a classical guitarist. A battle with a hand injury during her undergraduate studies at the conservatory led her to TU’s occupational therapy master’s program.
While the profession is not typically associated with workplace injuries, Bastepe-Gray says approximately three of four musicians suffer from playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMD). Yet evidence-based preventive programs for PRMD are scarce.
For the last three years, she has been developing such a program, SOUND WHHAVE, with Marlene Riley, retired clinical associate professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science. This program provides PRMD prevention support to Towson University’s music students and introduces the topic into the occupational therapy curriculum.
Bastepe-Gray also has presented workshops on injury prevention, management and rehabilitation for performing artists at guitar forums and music schools nationwide and consulted with individual musicians through in-person and online biomechanical retraining sessions.
Bastepe-Gray acknowledges her responsibility to teach the next generation of musicians what she knows. “We are now finding that the PRMD rates among amateur and professional musicians are at epidemic levels,” she explains, noting that TU is the one of only a few occupational therapy programs in the nation to include interventions for musicians’ health and wellness in the curriculum.
“ We are now finding that the playing-related musculoskeletal disorder rates among amateur and professional musicians are at epidemic levels. ”
A pioneer in the field who has presented internationally on performance health and wellness in student musicians, Bastepe-Gray is now working with other institutions looking to Towson University to help them develop curriculum content for musicians’ health and wellness.
“We are hoping to develop an inter-institutional collaborative platform,” she says. “Given my occupational therapist training combined with my medical background and my own experience as a professionally trained musician, I bring a unique perspective to the field of musicians’ occupational health.”