Music

EPIC Players Inclusive Theater Company

Founded in 2016, EPIC Players theater company was created as a neuro-diverse theater environment dedicated to creating professional performing arts opportunities for neurodivergent and disabled artists. To achieve this goal, EPIC offers inclusive mainstage productions, musical cabarets, original showcases and skills-based classes and career recourses. ABILITY Magazine’s Jennifer Woodall met EPIC performers Josh Cartagena and … Read more

Most Likely Not To… the musical

“Most Likely Not To…” is a-first-of-its-kind musical comedy centered around the difficulties of traveling with a disability. The musical was created in collaboration with members of the SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) community and the SMA My Way program founded by Genentech, a biotechnology company dedicated to discovering and developing medicine for people with serious and … Read more

The Power of Music in Early Childhood Development

Kim Cunningham, MS OTR, has been an early childhood occupational therapist for more than 20 years. Realizing the need to make occupational therapy fun and easy for parents, Cunningham developed Hands on Fun, a program that provides resources, tools, and activities geared toward the healthy development of kids. ABILITY Magazine’s Lia Martirosyan spoke with Cunningham … Read more

Saving Abel’s Jared Weeks — A Journey Toward Sobriety

Jared Weeks is a musician best known for founding the rock band Saving Abel in 2004 with bandmate Jason Null. Their first single, “Addicted,” was released in March of 2008 and quickly rose to popularity, landing on the Billboard Hot 100 and Top 40 charts. Weeks left Saving Abel in 2013 to pursue a solo … Read more

Amber Galloway-Gallego — Music Sign Language Interpretation

Amber Galloway-Gallego has emerged as a trailblazer in the world of sign language interpretation, particularly within the realm of concerts and music festivals. Specializing in the dynamic genres of rap and hip-hop, she has become a household name and a passionate advocate for music accessibility at all levels of hearing ability. She has interpreted for … Read more

Melissa Manchester — Celebrating Her 50th Anniversary Making Music

A career spanning 50 years, singer-songwriter, actress, recording artist, Grammy award-winning Melissa Manchester has multiple albums and counting. Manchester has had her songs recorded by Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack, Kenny Loggins, to name a few. She is a wonderfully energetic artist with roots firmly planted in music and a talented family encompassing all avenues of … Read more

Kenton Hall – My Bipolar and Getting Where I Needed to Be

Kenton Hall is a singer/songwriter, filmmaker, author, and proud dad of twin daughters, and he has just released his double album “Idiopath” and “Omniopath,” featuring 33 1/3 tracks. Hall also has bipolar disorder, diagnosed after he ran away from his abusive parents from Canada to the UK as a teenager. ABILITY Magazine’s Karina Sturm speaks … Read more

Krip Hop Nation — Keith Jones and Leroy F. Moore

Leroy Moore hails from New York and is an author, poet, community activist, and feminist. Keith Jones is a hip-hop artist and president of Soul Touchin’ Experiences, an organization focused on issues related to inclusion, civil rights, and empowerment of people with disabilities. Together they helped create Krip Hop Nation a crossroad of music, disability, … Read more

China’s Zhou Yuchen — Expanding Her Life in Music

Zhou Yuchen was born in Sichuan in 2002, an accident at the age of 5 leaving her blind in the right eye and reducing the already-poor vision in her other eye to somewhere between 20/200 and 20/100. She has been playing piano since early childhood and is skilled with traditional Chinese musical instruments, such as … Read more

It’s About T.I.M.E.: Music For All! 

It’s about time for music to be inclusive. It’s about time for bands to be made up of people with disabilities. It’s about time that music is for all. It’s about time for T.I.M.E.: a UK-based charity on a mission to bring music to everyone! ABILITY Magazine’s journalist Karina Sturm spoke with co-founder Rob Fillary … Read more

Randy Travis Part II—Life, Laughter, Importance of Music in Therapy.

Continued from the Randy Travis Issue Chet Cooper: Is there a movie in the works about your life, Randy? Mary Travis: There’s been noise. They have a two-hour documentary. One hour of it was shot prior to the stroke, the second hour was shot after the stroke. We got the hour done before the stroke, … Read more

Derek Amato — He Sees Music

Circa 2012 In 2006, Derek Amato got together with some friends for a party. After diving into a swimming pool, he apparently struck his head on the bottom. When he came up, he remembers seeing all his friends’ faces and trying to tell them he was hurt. He managed to make it to the side … Read more

Federico Martello interview with Lia Martirosyan

Straight out of Italy, into the hearts of music lovers everywhere. Singer, composer, and author Federico Martello loves opera, which he’s studied for years, but his passion for music is broader, spanning genres and centuries. With a style echoing classical, jazz, pop and soul, he resists the confines of a single path and goes instead … Read more

Randy Travis interview along with Mary Travis

With lifetime sales in excess of 25 million, Randy Travis is one of the biggest multi-genre record sellers of all time and a recent inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame class of 2016. His honors include seven Grammy Awards; 11 Academy of Country Music statuettes; 10 American Music Awards; two People’s Choice awards; … Read more

Lachi: Fighting for accessibility and inclusion for musicians with disabilities

Lachi is a blind singer and songwriter. However, more than that, she is advocating for talent in the music industry. A few weeks ago, she was part of the 2021 Grammy.com panel on disability and inclusion. Together with renowned violinist Gaelynn Lea, Oscar-nominated songwriter Siedah Garrett, singer and guitarist Ryan Nelson, hip-hop artist Namel Norris, … Read more

Lia Martirosyan — Music and Laughter

It’s true, in an instant, your life can change; an accident, a ruptured aneurysm, blunt trauma to the head, a cancer diagnosis. With Lia, it’s been slow, temperamental and undiagnosed. Her blasé attitude makes one wonder if she’s just used to her body’s deception. She isn’t, she just knows where her energy is best … Read more

Lachi Music — Music for the Soul

[Editor’s note: Lachi has changed her legal name, it is now Lachi Music] Little seems to hold back Lachi, a prolific New York City-based recording artist, songwriter, and diversity inclusion advocate. Interviewed by ABILITY ten years ago, she has since expanded her music repertoire, recording a wide variety of music, influenced by multiple genres, and reflective … Read more

Quincy Jones — The Quintessential Life of Harmony

Oct/Nov 2011 Quincy Jones’ music-industry reign spans more than six decades. He’s taken home a phenomenal 27 Grammy Awards, and found winning formulas for the likes of Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand. A major multimedia presence, he produced TV’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, created Vibe magazine, and co-produced the movie The Color … Read more

Review: Netflix Doc ‘Quincy’ Explores Life and Career of Quincy Jones

Unless you hail from some small village never before visited by outsiders, and this is one of your first times ever using the Internet, chances are you’ve heard music written, performed, arranged, and/ or produced by Quincy Jones. And if you happened across any popular music from the twentieth or twenty-first century in that journey … Read more

Leo Fender — A Music Legend

Leo Fender was a man whose influence resonates around the world. In just about any public space—stage, restaurant, mall, you name it—the American inventor’s impact is spoken through the ambient acoustics of the electric guitar. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an influential guitarist of rock ‘n roll or country western … Read more