Marc Neikrug, ‘Healing Ceremony’ Composer, Talks The Power Of Music

Marc Neikrug, a composer of contemporary classical music who has performed in both the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra, says of his most recent composition, Healing Ceremony, "I started thinking about people who get sick — not just cancer — but anytime someone finds out from their doctor that something is really wrong with them… I thought about the power music has over people; I wanted to write something that would change how your body feels — helping you calm down, handle stress, get in touch with inner feelings and inner thoughts." Neikrug, who has lived on a Pueblo reservation in Santa Fe, New Mexico for over two decades, incorporated elements of the the nation's healing ceremony into his music to inspire a sense of calmness and grounding for listeners. The composition was originally intended to help cancer patients, but Neikrug found that it helped people dealing with all kinds of hardships — particularly stress. Research shows that listening to music can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and even reduce the intensity of pain. "People should be much more conscious of the power that music has upon all of them — meaning your body and everything that’s going on inside of you," Neikrug says. "It’s not just, 'Oh this is cool — it makes me want to dance,' it’s much more complicated than that."

The Huffington Post, 5/24/2013