Therapist uses love of music to bring together people with and without disabilities

NINA MOINI: For my next guest, this coming Sunday is A Day of Hope. That's the name of a musical gathering by a Twin Cities nonprofit called Light in the Well. Dancers, singers, and musicians with and without disabilities will come together for a performance at the Landmark Center in Saint Paul. Light in the Well founder and music therapist Yue Wu joins me now to talk about her work. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon.

YUE WU: Thank you so much for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: This is very exciting. Would you start, Wu, by just explaining overall the work that Light in the Well does?

YUE WU: Yes. The idea for Light in the Well was really born from a desire to address the emotional and social isolation that people with disabilities and their families can sometimes experience. So my goal was to create a platform that not only showcased the talents of performers with disabilities, but also uses their stories to foster greater understanding and empathy in the broader community.

NINA MOINI: So-- oh, go ahead.

YUE WU: Yeah, we created a signature multisensory performance that weaves together music with the real-life stories of people with disabilities. So we're not just creating a show, we're creating a conversation. So we want to build a world where people of all abilities learn from, appreciate, and embrace one another, and music just happened to be proven to be the best vehicle for that.

NINA MOINI: Wow. Yeah, what a powerful tool music is. And the name struck me as well, Light in the Well. Can you describe where that came from, what that means to you?

YUE WU: Yes, thank you for asking. Eventually we had an interview with families who have children with disabilities joining us. So we interviewed their experience of having a child with disability, and their answer said, sometimes they feel it's dark, it's cold, it's lonely. And sometimes they feel stuck, but there is light. The light is love and hope. So that's what they want to tell their story through our platform.

NINA MOINI: That's a beautiful name. So for people, though, who aren't as familiar with music therapy, I feel like that is a very broad term. Could you just describe, as a music therapist, what it is? And then how you decide maybe what type of music or music therapy to use with an individual?

YUE WU: Yes. To begin with, music therapy is really using music as a vehicle to achieve nonmusic goals, such as speech-language, sensory-motor, social-emotional goals. We meet people where they are through assessment, getting to know them, and then we create individualized treatment plans towards mutually agreed goals.

For example, if a child has difficulty speaking, a music therapist might use a simple song with repeated phrases. And over time, the child may make some vocalizations and eventually speak the words themselves. The music provides a nonthreatening and fun way to engage the client and build communication skills. Just think about how we all learned the 26 alphabet through music.

NINA MOINI: Sure, yeah. And I was poking around your website before the show, and there were examples of people that you have helped. What made you want to do this work? What gratifies you when you see people make the progress they make?

YUE WU: I think when I was little, I was a musician. So I always feel I'm good at music, but I also want to help others. Music therapy really bridge these two passions of mine together. To see the progress those people are making, it feels, wow, what I started, what I'm doing, is really meaningful. I bring some value to other people, and those people are able to integrate to their environment better every day. And that is what I think gratifies me the best.

NINA MOINI: It's something that I really wish everybody could have access to who needed it. Your event this weekend is free, which is really lovely. In general, Wu, is music therapy something that is accessible to people who might benefit from it?

YUE WU: We are trying our best to make it more and more accessible. I think in the metro area, it's getting there. However, in the rural area, it's really in need of a lot of therapists, because people live, like, two hours away from the metro area. They just don't necessarily have access to treatment. So that's why we also develop some telemusic therapy, so develop some programs to provide music therapy services online. It's not saying it's the same as in person, but at least people have access to the treatment.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. So let's talk about the event this weekend-- why is it important for you to include musicians and storytellers of all abilities, people with and without disabilities, in the day's events?

YUE WU: Yes, we are so excited for our Day of Hope this coming Sunday, especially at this beautiful Landmark Center in Saint Paul.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

YUE WU: Yeah, we really want to celebrate people from different backgrounds, with and without disabilities. Performers are actually coming from all over the world this time. We're going to dazzling the audience with instrumental playing, multicultural dancing, and singing. We also invited artists with and without disabilities from different cultural backgrounds to showcase their artworks at the event.

NINA MOINI: And there's also a panel, a documentary. Are there opportunities for people to connect and share their dialogues?

YUE WU: Yes, we actually are going to open the show with a song called "Hello Around the World." We're going to have people from different places of the world using their mother tongue to say hello and teach the audience, and the audience-- it's going to be very interactive, so the audience can respond to us. We are going to invite the audience to give some ideas for the next song, to do it together as a community.

NINA MOINI: Do you think there's a way for people who have musical gifts to get involved with providing some of this therapy? You mentioned you were a musician when you were younger. Maybe there's somebody listening who has a talent or a gift who says, maybe I can share it in that way. Is there training? What do you have to do to help with something like that?

YUE WU: Yes. So to be able to be involved in Light in the Well as a volunteer, we always looking for help. We have another program called Come to the Well, which is a friendship gathering. After people know each other through this performance, we want to continue the friendship outside of a performance. So we have a quarterly gathering for people with and without disability to gather over friendship, food, and music. If somebody who has a talent of music, I want to share that gift, we always welcome people to join us to help.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So moving into this weekend, I read that your first event, and maybe you mentioned this, was in 2021, so coming out of the pandemic. Now we're in 2025, so how has the event grown and what's it been like watching it grow?

YUE WU: Yes, the first event actually was at MacPhail Center for Music. I am still working with MacPhail as a music therapist. Very grateful for my employer provide the opportunity for us to showcase the first performance. Ever since then, we've been going to a bigger audience at the Landmark Center.

This year, very excitingly, we started to work with a school district. This past May, we had a show with the White Bear Lake Area High School, to have high school musicians performing the orchestra music and feature their own students from the special education program. So moving forward, we want to expand that, to replicate to different school districts too.

NINA MOINI: Wonderful. And just lastly, Wu, music therapy, we're talking a lot about children and early-life types of things. But is this something for all ages?

YUE WU: It is. It's from birth to death.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, yeah. Such a beautiful cause. Very excited for you. Congratulations, and wishing you well on the event this weekend. Thank you so much.

YUE WU: Thank you so much for this opportunity, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Yue Wu a music therapist and the founder of the nonprofit Light in the Well. Again, the event coming up this Sunday in the afternoon at the Landmark Center in Saint Paul. We'll have information on that for you at mprnews.org.

That is it for Minnesota Now today. Tomorrow on the show, we're going to continue our AI in education series. We're going to be talking to a mental health professional. We've talked with a student, a teacher consultant in the schools, and a teacher from Saint Paul we talked with yesterday. If you missed any of that AI in the schools series, you can always find it at mprnews.org, or you can search Minnesota Now wherever you get your podcasts. That is a fun and an important conversation that we've been having all this week as folks return to school.

Plus, tomorrow, a Minnesotan will be on the big screen for the long-awaited awaited film adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Long Walk, so we're going to hear a conversation with actor Ben Wang. That's tomorrow at noon. I hope you'll join us and hope you have a great rest of your day.

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