Cathy DeWitt

An eclectic professional musician since the 1970's, Cathy DeWitt has shared the stage and the airwaves with Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Garrison Keillor, Florida folk legend Will McLean, jazz pianist Rob Bargad, AfroCuban percussionist Bobby Sanabria, and more. A jazz vocalist and pianist, bluegrass guitarist and folksinger/ songwriter, she serves on the Boards of the Gainesville Friends of Jazz and the Friends of Florida Folk. As a New Thought musician she has appeared with authors Marianne Williams, Bernie Seigel, Larry Dossey, and Alan Cohen. She is a nationally published writer, concert producer, and bandleader for jazz quartet MoonDancer and female folk/bluegrass band Patchwork, a favorite on the Florida festival circuit. Her ten-year jazz concert series in tribute to jazz guitarist Charlie Bush was recorded for broadcast by North Central Florida's National Public Radio affiliate, WUFT (www.wuft.org), where she also produces and hosts a weekly folk show, "Across the Prairie." In 1995 she found an unexpected setting for her musical versatility at the Shands Arts in Medicine program in Gainesville, Florida, where she continues to create and sustain a pioneering, world-renowned Music in Medicine program. From piano playing in the hospital lobby to elevator singalongs, from hallway concerts to bedside harp in the ICUs, Cathy uses music to transform the hospital environment and the patient experience. As Musician in Residence/Music Program Coordinator for Arts in Medicine at both Shands hospitals in Gainesville, Florida, she coordinates concerts, plays several instruments and sings at the bedside for patients, trains and mentors other hospital musicians, and gives workshops on music as stress-management for caregivers. She has presented workshops and seminars at many universities, arts & healing events, and hospitals, including conferences for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and spiritual gatherings and retreats for Unity. Her consultant clients include Vanderbilt University, San Diego Hospice, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and the Royal Hospital in London. Along with several individual songwriting awards, including two from the 2006 Unisong International Songwriting Contest, she is the winner of a Fetzer Grant for her Healing Music Programs, a Florida Arts Council Individual Artist Enhancement Grant, and the 2005 National League of Penwomen Gainesville Branch Award for Music. She is a founding member of the National Center for Creative Aging, and through her work with the Florida Center for Creative Aging she became the coordinator of the NIH/NEA funded "Vital Visionaries" project at the University of Florida in 2006 and 2007/8. Since 2006 she has been one of a handful of national consultants for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare.