Don Campbell

“Music is more than what meets the ear.”

The music world has lost an inspiring teacher and intrepid sonic explorer in Don Campbell, whose pioneering work extolling the transformative power of sound and music is now reverberating in homes, schools, universities, healing centers, and concert halls throughout the world.

Awakened by his early training in piano, organ, and voice as a small boy, his formal studies with renowned French pedagogues Nadya Boulanger and Jean Casadesus at the Fountainebleu Conservatory in Paris, and his association with aural researcher Alfred Tomatis, Don continued his life-long musical study by surrounding himself with classical, traditional, and sacred music from the four corners.

His inquiry and research resulted in an extensive body of work, bridging age-old wisdom with cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs in sound, which shaped the evolution of music therapy and music education. A compelling speaker at presentations and workshops worldwide, his legacy will live on through his twenty-three books, DVDs, compact discs, the Institute of Music, Health and Education he founded in Boulder, Colorado, and Aesthetic Audio Systems, a multi-level program of music and sound used in hospitals to promote optimum healing. His internationally celebrated work, The Mozart Effect, examines the role quality music plays in integrating mind, body, and spirit, and its importance in early childhood education.

Don Campbell was a steadfast believer in the Suzuki method, touching our community personally as keynote speaker and guest clinician at the SAA Conference in Chicago in 1998. Indeed, the first paragraph of The Mozart Effect recounts the story of Krissy, one of my Suzuki violin students who, as a premature baby, was only comforted by the violin concertos of Mozart. Krissy is thriving and performing the violin today—a beautiful case in point.

Donations may be made to the Don G. Campbell Fund for the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder for the maintenance and preservation of the Don Campbell Collection.

CU College of Music
301 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309
ATTN: AMRC – Campbell Fund

For more information, please call 303-735-6070.