About - Music for My Mind

Who we are

Free personalised playlists for people living with dementia

Who We Are

Music for my Mind - Our Story

Music for my Mind (Registered charity number 1167246) is an innovative young charity aiming to improve the well-being of people living with dementia (over 1,000,000 in the UK alone), their family, friends and care providers, by creating and making personalised music playlists widely available, as an affordable therapy in dementia care.

Research has shown that listening to music can help to:

Recreate connections with relatives
Reduce reliance on drug treatments
Manage anxiety, combat depression and ease stress during difficult care events.

Why was MFMM established?

We all have soundtracks to our lives. Music touches so much of life that a particular song can bring back treasured memories or clear visions of the past. There is growing evidence that personally meaningful music can be calming and/or stimulating for people living with dementia; it can recreate the ‘common ground’ stolen from relationships and improve their well-being and that of those close to them.

Using music to access memories for people living with dementia is not a new idea; music therapists have recognised its benefits for many years. Using technology to automatically select and deliver favourite music via a personal playlist IS new and conducting research will provide the evidence needed to influence policy makers, care providers and clinicians to deploy personalised music listening appropriately within dementia care and social prescribing.

We want to enable people affected by dementia to enjoy their life soundtrack through easy-to-access personalised music that improves their quality of life and the well-being of those closest to them.

How are we delivering our vision?

Our long-term vision is for every care home in Britain to have a music programme and for everyone living with dementia to benefit from music as an integral part of the care they receive. Our mission, therefore, is: through research and technological development, to promote and enable the take up of personalised music to improve the well-being of people living with dementia, their relatives, friends and carers.

Meet our Trustees and Team

Music for my Mind has the backing of a committed and influential Board, chaired by the Founder, Professor Keith McAdam, whose background in clinical medicine and research has helped us envision a step by step process to achieve our goal of improving quality of life for people living with dementia, working with cross-disciplinary collaborators.

Keith McAdam (Chair)

Keith McAdam is Emeritus Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and International Advisor at the Royal College of Physicians. He was the foundation director (2004-7) at the Infectious Diseases Institute in Uganda, where a Creativity Initiative illustrated the powerful effects of music and art in promoting wellbeing and personal involvement of people living with HIV.

Nick Black

Professor Sir Nick Black is Professor of Health Services Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His main research interests include methods for assessing the quality of health care and approaches to transforming health and care through local creativity and entrepreneurship. For ten years he led the reinvigoration of clinical audit in the NHS as Chair of the DHSC National Advisory Group for Clinical Audit and Enquiries. He also studies and writes on the history of health care.

Ian Bullock

Dr Ian Bullock is the Chief Executive Officer at the Royal College of Physicians. Ian has expertise in evidence-based healthcare, research and development (including quality improvement), critical care clinical practice, and clinical and higher education.

Arabella Chandos

Arabella Chandos was a Senior Director at Sotheby’s London, Old Master Paintings department, between 1979 and 2020. She has sat on various committees such as supporting Macmillan Cancer, Cancer Research UK, English National Opera, Opera Rara and is a Trustee of Gainsborough’s House.

Tim Clark

Tim Clark is co-founder of ie:music, the artist management company renowned for representing some of the industry’s most successful artists, including Robbie Williams, Lily Allen and Passenger. He has been Vice-President for UNICEF since 2002 and played a key role in developing Soccer Aid for UNICEF.

Alicia Dyer Beckford (Treasurer)

A chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience mainly within the charity sector. Experienced at leading a finance function in small to medium organisations overseeing budgets, forecasts, monthly management reporting as well as year-end reporting to ensure that statutory and corporate obligations are met. Alicia enjoys travelling and listening to music.

Helen Greatorex

Helen Greatorex worked in mental health services for over forty years, most recently as Chief Executive of Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Trust. A Registered Mental Health Nurse by background, she has long understood and championed the importance of music in our lives, and witnessed first hand the difference that it can make, particularly for people living with dementia.

Roberto Neri

Roberto Neri is a music industry veteran with over 20 years experience of leading and building global music companies. He is CEO at The Ivors Academy and former Chairman of the Music Publishers Association and formerly sat on the UK Music board.

Lionel Wallace

Aeronautical Engineer and former CEO of the London Community Gospel Choir.

Meet our Advisory Board

Richard Buccleuch

Richard Scott, 10th Duke of Buccleuch and the 12th Duke of Queensberry, has made his family home in Nithsdale in Dumfriesshire. Married with four children he is involved in management of the historic family estate businesses, heritage properties and art collections. He was made a KBE in 2000 and has held many notable public appointments over the years including President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and Director of Border Television.

Nicholas Craig

Nicholas Craig is a Barrister, specialising in Commercial Litigation and International Arbitration. He provides legal advice to the organisation.

Liam Fisher-Jones

Liam Fisher-Jones is the Chief Development Officer at the African Leadership Group and a Director at AMREF Health Africa, the continent’s largest home grown health organisation. His previous roles include director at More Partnership (a leading fundraising and strategic advisory firm for the third sector); Development Director for Physicians for Africa; fundraising for the Royal Shakespeare Company (where he ran a £113m campaign).

Clive Hollick

The Right Honourable Lord Hollick is a Member of the House of Lords. He is a non-executive director of Honeywell International. He was Chief Executive of UBM plc, a Partner at KKR and led the media industry team in Europe. He was Chairman of SBS Broadcasting and a director of The Nielsen Company. He is a member of the board of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Royal Society.

Sue Hollick

Lady Hollick OBE is a businesswoman and consultant with wide-ranging involvement in broadcasting and the arts. A former investigative journalist, she worked for many years in television, where her roles included founding commissioning editor of Multicultural Programmes for Channel 4 and producer/ director of World in Action for Granada TV. Other causes and organisations which she has been associated with include the Stuart Hall Foundation and African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).

Caroline Kemp

Caroline Kemp has a long career specialising in the voluntary and charity sector both in urban and rural surroundings. The Citizens Advice service, housing and refugee, and inter-generational community charities have all been part of Caroline’s experience including management and policy creation. This work has also involved fundraising and user representation.

Jonathan May

Jonathan May is a digital fundraising expert, Founder of Hubbub and an Associate Partner at More Partnership. He also served as a Director of the UK Crowdfunding Association for two years at the inception of the regulatory environment approving the use of equity crowdfunding in the UK. Jonathan has helped build digital giving programmes at over 50 UK universities and nonprofits, is a Winston Churchill Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Leadership Fellow of St George’s House, Windsor.

Mark Williamson

Mark Williamson is a Co-Founder and CEO of ROSTR – a start-up company building technology to help create a more modern, connected and fair music industry. Previously he lead the Spotify Artist Services Team worldwide. He was responsible for building relationships with artists and their teams, managers, agents, lawyers and marketeers. Mark is keen to use music technology to support Music for my Mind.

Meet our Team

Dimana Georgieva

Programme Manager

Dimana is a Music and Entertainment Industry Management graduate from the University of Hertfordshire. Since then she has worked with MFMM in a variety of aspects, such as liaising with partners, running crowdfunding campaigns and coordinating the charity’s projects. She assists the team with research and curates playlists for people living with dementia. Dimana has always been passionate about music, from singing in a choir during high school, to playing various instruments and pursuing a career in music.

Julian Lomas

Strategy & Fundraising Consultant

Julian is the founder of Almond Tree Strategic Consulting, a values-driven consultancy, predominantly supporting the third sector. He has a proven track record of delivering high quality support, innovation and tangible value for clients. He is passionate about public and voluntary service and is himself a charity trustee. In his role for the charity, Julian is working on strategy, governance and fundraising.

Marcel Gehrung

Computer Science Collaborator

Marcel is the co-founder and CEO of Cyted, a company developing digital diagnostic infrastructure to drive the earlier detection of disease. He completed his PhD in Medical Sciences and Machine Learning in Healthcare from University of Cambridge. As a serial entrepreneur with a experience in leadership, fundraising, high-growth business management, and translational science, Marcel is collaborating with MFMM on innovative ways to measure emotion in people with dementia, through the use of facial expression change analysis.

Katie Snell

Marketing & Communications Manager

Katie is a Visual Communications graduate with over 20 year’s commercial marketing and communications experience within the leisure, entertainment and consumer healthcare industries. She has worked in digital and social for companies including Butlin’s, Sky, GSK and Hilton Hotels. Katie has two young sons and is also a qualified yoga teacher, reiki practitioner and trainee infant sleep consultant.

Lucy Kerry

Research Assistant

Lucy’s interest in the connection between music and dementia started when she was caring for her grandma, Margaret, who lived with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia for over a decade. She saw a huge difference in her after singing along with Nat King Cole, Tom Jones, and Mario Lanza. Fascinated with this phenomenon, Lucy began a BSc in Psychology from Goldsmiths University focusing on Music Psychology. She then went on to study for a Masters in Dementia & Neuroscience from UCL.

Research Advisory Group

Music for my Mind’s Research Programme is supported by our Research Advisory Group. This group was formed with the aim to provide support and guidance as we develop our programme of feasibility studies and conduct various pieces of research. Our Research Advisors are:

Dr Fiona Costa, Music Therapist and Honorary Research Fellow, Roehampton University;
Dr Jane Fleming, Senior Research Associate, Cambridge Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge School of Public Health;
Prof Andrew Nunn, Epidemiologist & Statistician, Deputy Head of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London.

A big thank you to our supporters along our journey

We would like to thank most sincerely our business sponsors, organisations and individuals who have offered their services free of charge or have generously contributed towards our projects. Your belief in our work from the start has been incredibly motivating. We’d like to thank:

Dementia Research UK for recognising the importance of using technology and research to implement change and providing vital financial support towards our ongoing projects and roll-out of our services, joining us on the journey of helping people living with dementia.

John and Nula Suchet (Classic FM), Phil Noyce (Classic FM), Neil Brand (composer), Suzi Digby (ORA Singers) for their help and advice on expanding our music catalogue.

Chirag Rao and John Peatfield, graduate students from UCL, for working on a study to define the popular music ‘reminiscence bump’ (13 to 19 years old).

Quantum Care for also believing in the power of music and their desire to provide this service for their residents.

Chris Palk and DabApps for their enthusiasm to work with us on creating exciting technological solutions.

Jan Fenton, for providing us with valuable HR support and advice on employee recruitment.

Chandresh Kapadia (David Simon Accountants) for providing their accounting and payroll services.

Gary Heywood (Haines Watts) for acting as Independent Examiner of our Annual Return to the Charity Commission.

Karen Atkinson and DataHolix, for their advice on digital communication and provision of software services.

Gary Atkinson for his technology advice and support.

Kate Ford for her help with social media and data collection.

Ivan Entchevitch, Andreas Conradi and Red Badger, for their advice and support on product design and creating the best user experience.

Hubbub and all the team for providing us with a platform to reach our supporters and raise money for our cause and their continuous advice.

Alan Witts and Hangman Studio for creating our moving video, which you can see here.

St. Matthews Care Home, Redbourn and Tara’s Retreat, St Albans for showing their support and enthusiasm for this project from the early days.

Whiteing Design for assisting us with our logo and branding.

John Thompson for his help with design and branding.