As a Juilliard trained musician with a background in public health, I've always been interested in creating moments of intersection between the arts and public health.
Whether on the radio, in concerts, or in print, read on below to see some of the ways I've explored using the arts as a tool for greater access to public health services, education, and awareness.
Op-ed: If arts institutions used this innovative strategy to boost public health awareness, they could help end the disease that once decimated the classical music world.
No disease has had as notorious an impact on classical music as syphilis.
Composer Franz Schubert spent years battling the disease with mercury baths, saunas and pills, dying at 31 with his 9th symphony unfinished; Bedřich Smetana wrote a string quartet chronicling his syphilis-induced hearing loss; and American hero Scott Joplin went slowly insane with tertiary syphilis, dying in a New York City mental hospital before his opera Treemonisha could be heard.
Syphilis wasn’t curable in their lifetimes, but it has been since the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s. But even though it was almost entirely eradicated in 2000, it’s back now. Cases have skyrocketed in recent years, reaching levels not seen since the 1950s. U.S. rates have surged by nearly 80% since 2019 and by over 3000% since 2000.
​
Why? Factors include a lack of screening during the pandemic, when many STI clinics were converted to Covid-19 testing sites; discontinuation of STI awareness campaigns due to funding reallocation; expansion of sexual networks in the era of dating apps; and the fact that many states still do lack useful sexual health education. Despite this spike, Congress voted in 2023 to strip $400 million of vital funding to the workers who provide access to education, testing and treatment for STIs.​​
But what if I told you that classical music could help play a role in getting rid of syphilis once and for all?
Imagine if arts organizations and hospitals in cities around the U.S. partnered to offer incentives for a range of public health initiatives, offering free or discounted tickets to those who participate in health screenings or vaccinations at partner hospitals.
You might raise an eyebrow, but we need creative solutions, and as a Juilliard-trained musician and former medical researcher, I see a unique opportunity for classical music and arts organizations to help stick it to the disease that claimed the lives of so many musicians.
​​
It’s a win-win strategy for arts institutions.
Audiences at classical performances have struggled to regain audiences since the pandemic. Last season, New York City’s Metropolitan Opera sold just 72% of its tickets, leaving an average of 1,064 seats empty at every performance. The Met lies at the heart of New York City’s Lincoln Center, a cultural institution that also includes the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, and The Juilliard School. All have been plagued with flagging ticket sales.
​
But what if these institutions offered their unsold tickets to people getting tested for syphilis?
That could fill those empty seats, promote awareness of our cities’ vital cultural institutions and help eradicate disease – all at no extra cost to them.
​
Lincoln Center already partners with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, in a collaboration that began in 2016 and named NewYork-Presbyterian the “official” hospital of Lincoln Center and wellness sponsor for certain programming and events. Hospital CEO Steven J. Corwin described the collaboration as “two iconic New York City institutions coming together to offer the very best in both arts and wellness.” They’ve since offered dancing in the plaza to stimulate physical wellbeing, musical meditation for mental wellbeing, and blood drives accompanied by performances from Juilliard students.
​
Now, they could bring this collaboration to a new level by offering free tickets to patients being tested for syphilis in any of NewYork-Presbyterian’s eight citywide STI clinics. They could even set up a testing unit right in Lincoln Center, similar to their blood drive. Space, publicity and accompanying performances could be provided by Lincoln Center, with testing provided by NewYork-Presbyterian. Both organizations would benefit, and funding could be available through grants focused specifically on cross-sector collaborations.
​
Cooperation between the public health sector and the arts to offer education, testing and treatment of syphilis has worked in the past. In the 1940s and 50s, musical stars including Woody Guthrie and Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded radio PSAs to tell the public that penicillin could treat it. This creative campaign allowed Americans to learn and talk about syphilis openly and helped to contribute to 2 million Americans getting treated between 1945 and 1955.
​
And why stop at syphilis, or with New York? Whether a seasonal flu shot or HIV testing, this approach could not only address pressing public health concerns but also create a new wave of cultural engagement and appreciation. It could potentially de-stigmatize disease while putting performing arts institutions at the heart of their communities’ wellbeing. It might even break down the elitism so often associated with classical music by inviting people to engage in new ways.
​
While not everybody who needs syphilis education, testing and treatment cares about tickets to the symphony or the opera, the awareness generated from a partnership like this could create a ripple effect that brings more testing to communities most at risk.
​
Lincoln Center and NewYork-Presbyterian have already shown their collaboration can be mutually beneficial.
​
By merging public health initiatives with the arts, we can both combat disease and rejuvenate our cities’ crucial cultural institutions, proving that the arts can be a powerful force for change.
THIS COMPOSER IS SICK!
a podcast from Emi Ferguson and WQXR
LISTEN
THIS COMPOSER IS SICK!
a 4-part series from WQXR's Artist Propulsion Lab
This composer is SICK! explores the impact of Syphilis on the lives and music of Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin over the course of four gripping mini-episodes, using public radio and classical music history to bring attention to and education about the current rise in Syphilis cases here in New York City, and around the country.
Episode 1
let's talk about s...yphilis
In this first episode, let's talk about s...yphilis, Emi Ferguson connects the dots between an Italian shepherd who upset Apollo, an angry Arnold Schoenberg in a Los Angeles grocery store (spoiler alert: he didn't have syphilis), and 1940s public health campaigns, all with the help of Syphilis expert, Dr. Sheila Lukehart, and famed musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Episode 2
schubert's heavy metal therapy
What's the relationship between syphilis, mercury, and the composer of "Die Forelle?" Emi Ferguson continues her exploration of how syphilis impacted classical composers. This episode looks at the case of Franz Schubert, who died in 1828 at the age of 31.
Emi is joined by Schubert scholar and James H. Ottaway Professor of music history, Christopher H. Gibbs, as well as Dr. Sheila Lukehart. Together, Emi and her guests explore the impact of syphilis and its treatments on Schubert, as well as his late life and works.
Episode 3
Bedřich Smetana and the High E of Doom
There's something strange in the last movement of Bedřich Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, "From My Own Life." In the middle of a lively finale, the quartet breaks off, followed by a mysterious high note.
What does it all mean?
How is it connected to his syphilis?
All that and more on this episode of This Composer is Sick.
Episode 4
scott joplin didn't die of opera failure
This Composer is Sick! wraps up with an exploration of how syphilis affected the life, works, and death of American composer Scott Joplin.
Host Emi Ferguson and her guests, Joplin biographer and ragtime scholar Edward Berlin, and syphilis researcher Sheila Lukehart, look at Joplin's life as he battled syphilis, particularly his last years in New York, as he worked to stage a production of his opera, Treemonisha.