At Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy, we use music, art, drama and movement to transform lives. Our team of licensed creative arts therapists, teachers and professional performers and artists use evidence-based creative arts approaches to bring joy, help build skills, form meaningful relationships and create an accepting community.  The arts can change our lives through rewiring our brains, helping us learn to regulate our minds, bodies and feelings, improve focus, attention and memory, connect with others and have joyful experiences.

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Since 1993, Jeffrey Friedberg MT-BC, LCAT has been providing music therapy to children, teens and adults with a wide variety of skills, challenges and abilities. He has worked in hospitals, outpatient treatment centers and schools. In 2013 he opened Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy in Nyack, NY. His goal was to create a center where people could build skills, improve their lives and form meaningful relationship through music and the other creative and performing arts.

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The response in the community was tremendous. Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy currently has 15 staff, a vibrant musical theater program, 5 performing rock bands, 3 choruses, and a wide variety of arts based programing including podcasting class, improv class and more!

 

At Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy, we combine the science of brain research with the playfulness of the creative arts to help children, teens and adults build skills and improve their lives. Please contact us to find out more about our programs.

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•  Children, teens and adults

• Open to all in community including those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, social-behavioral challenges, depression, anxiety, developmental delays and disabilities, brain injury,  Alzheimer's and dementia, managing with grief and loss 

• Individual and group lessons, classes and music and art therapy

• Play therapy and parent coaching

• All skills, abilities and challenges welcome

• State-of-the-art studio in Nyack PLUS in-home, virtual and off-site 

• Over 25 years experience  

Owner/Music Therapist:

Alan "Jeffrey" Friedberg MT-BC, LCAT​

Jeffrey is a board-certified music therapist and a NY State licensed creative arts therapist. He created Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy since in 2013 to help children, teens and adults use music to build important life skills and have meaningful experiences. For 29 years he has provided music therapy to children, teens and adults in schools, hospitals and day programs. He also runs the Parents' Choice Award-winning children band, The Bossy Frog Band. He graduated from NYU with an MA in music therapy. 

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Music Therapist:

Molly Gorman MT-BC, LCAT

Molly is a board-certified music therapist and a provisional NY State licensed creative arts therapist. She has worked at Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy for 3 years providing individual and group music therapy and lessons as well as being onsite supervisor for the Musical Theater Program. She has a background in Broadway music, both vocally and piano, and play guitar as well as several other instruments. She graduated from NYU with an MA in music therapy.

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Music Therapist:​

Arianna Dempsey MT-B

Arianna Dempsey is a board-certified music therapist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2007 from SUNY Fredonia. She completed her internship at Matheny Medical & Educational Center in Peapack, NJ. While her main instrument is voice (classical & Broadway), Arianna also plays piano, guitar, ukulele, and electric bass, with knowledge in African percussion as well. Arianna has worked with a variety of populations including early childhood, adolescents, adults with varied intellectual and physical disabilities, and geriatrics. She also participated in a volunteer trip to Athens, Greece in 2019 with Music Therapy Without Borders. While there, she worked with Afghani refugees at Malakasa Refugee Camp, helping refugees in their day to day lives through the power of music. Arianna is thrilled to be continuing her career with the Music For Life team! 

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Art Therapist:

Grace Pyo ATR

Grace is a registered art therapist (ATR). She has extensive experiences working with children, teens and adults in a variety of settings including Rockland Psychiatric Center, Bardonia Elementary School, All Hallows High School and Metropolitan Hospital. Grace is a graduate of The College of New Rochelle Graduate School. She brings a broad range of skills to Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy.

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Music Teacher:

Dave Reiss

Dave is a professional musician, educator, sound engineer and entrepreneur. He has taught private music lessons and group lesson sin NY and NJ since 2006. He has helped many students of all ages and skill levels to achieve their musical goals. Dave teaches beginner through expert guitar, bass and music theory lessons. He also teaches beginner piano and drums, and can teach all levels of performers to play cohesively together or to improve their existing band. He graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

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Musical Theater Program:

Terese Giammarco

Terese has worked at Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy as Director in the musical theater program since 2018. She has worked in The Bossy Frog Band with Jeffrey Friedberg for over 10 years. She has over 20 years experience as an educator, currently working with individuals with special needs and their families as a curriculum assistant at the Manitou School in Cold spring New York. She is also a long time veteran of the theater and film industry.  Her son, a young adult with Autism, is the inspiration for combining her background in both areas and joining the team here at Music for Life C.A.T. Terese is passionate about creating more opportunities for people with disabilities through creative expression in this wonderfully, integrated environment that is open to all. 

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Acting Coach/Musical Theater Program:

Rick Apicella

Rick is an award-winning actor from Pearl River, NY. He has been performing on stage and television in and around NYC for the past fifteen years. He has worked as acting coach in Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy’s Musical Theater Program since 2018. As a playwright, some of Rick’s recent plays include Something in the Way (2020), produced by Bristol Valley Theater via Broadway On Demand, The Legend (2018), which was COMMEDED by the BBC and produced at the Westchester Collaborative Theater in Ossining, NY and The Prodigy (2017) produced at the Studio Theater on Theater Row, NYC. Also, Rick has been a proud member of The Bossy Frog Band since 2014 and proud father to his five year old son, Richie.

 

Play Therapy/Psychotherapy/Parent Coaching:

Beth Friedberg LCSW

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Beth Friedberg LCSW, has over 25 years’ experience providing parent coaching and therapy to children, teens and adults. Please contact Jeffrey Friedberg MT-BC, LCAT for a consultation and to arrange a session with Beth.

• Play Therapy: Through play, children learn new ways to manage anger, anxiety, focus/attention, emotional regulation, social and behavioral challenges, sleep, school issues, loss/grief, and more.

• Parent Coaching: Many challenges children face can be most effectively addressed through helping the parent(s). Work on a variety of issues from regulation, focus, behavior and anxiety/anger.

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Music Therapist:

Sarah Morris MT-BC, LCAT

Sarah Morris MT-BC, LCAT is a board certified music therapist and NY State licensed creative arts therapist. She joins Music For Life Creative Arts Therapy after being the director of therapeutic recreation at Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home in NYC and chorus director at Actionplay Chorus/AIM Workshop. At Mary Manning Walsh she spent several years providing music therapy to seniors before she became director of her department. At Actionplay she lead weakly choir rehearsal s for young adults on the autistic spectrum. She has also worked with young children with special needs. Sarah is a talented vocalist and plays guitar and piano. Sarah has an MA in music therapy from NYU.​​​​

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Art Therapist:

Christine Randolph ATR-BC, LCAT

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Christine Randolph is a NYS-licensed and board certified art therapist. She has worked at Four Winds Hospital and was the Director of the Rockland Living Museum at Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, NY. Christine is very passionate about all forms of creativity and how art can inspire personal growth and healing. 

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Music Therapist:

Matthew Cohen MT-BC, LCAT 

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Matthew Cohen holds an MS in Music Therapy from SUNY New Paltz. He has worked individually and in groups with a variety of populations, including children and adults with neurodevelopmental impairments and mental health needs. Matthew’s background is in musical improvisation, and he has music-directed and taught for the Second City in Chicago and Los Angeles, and was music director for the Groundlings Theatre & School in Los Angeles from 2016 to 2020.

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Music Therapist:

Autumn Hill MT-BC

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Autumn is a board certified music therapist and a graduate of University of the Pacific. She completed her internship at the Salem VA Medical Center in Salem, Virginia and has been involved in several community music programs including group ukulele classes and musical theater productions. In addition to her passion for a wide variety of creative pursuits, Autumn plays flute, guitar, ukulele, and piano and has worked in memory care centers, behavioral and mental health clinics, and hospitals to provide opportunities for joy and creativity to everyone she meets. 

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Music Therapist 

Brandon Isles

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Brandon Isles is a board certified music therapist. He received his MS in Music Therapy from SUNY New Paltz. He completed his clinical internship at VA Hudson Valley, where he worked with veterans in both long term and psychiatric care. Additional clinical placements included community outreach for substance use and assisted living. He also spent two years working with at-risk adolescents and young adults at a horticultural therapy program in Hawai’i. Brandon specializes in percussion, is passionate about jazz, and has performed professionally around the northeastern US for 15 years. 

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Art Teacher 

Frank Milillo

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Frank Milillo has taught art in the Nyack public school district for 16 years.  He has  a masters degree in art history from Purchase College.  He is also a landscape oil painter and illustrator.  One of his aspirations is to have one of his paintings displayed in a museum.