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When William “Bill” Dougherty is not teaching at the University of Washington in Seattle, he is raising awareness about gun violence.

Dougherty is part of Hearing Philadelphia,  a newly launched  community music project aimed at honoring the voices of Philadelphians who have been affected by gun violence, and providing healing for families who are still dealing with the pain of losing friends or family. The ensemble includes amateur, student, and professional string players, woodwind players, percussionists, brass players, and vocalists. The group had their first performance at City Hall recently.

Dougherty, the creative director of the project, said he started Hearing Philadelphia two years ago to help his community through music. He wanted to amplify the stories of victims.

“We so often just hear numbers and we hear police narratives, and we hear locations, and we hear nothing of the lives of those we’ve lost, the toll that it, that this loss, has on communities,” Dougherty said. “And so I just was trying to think through how I can create some sort of musical work to amplify these voices that we’re not hearing.”

Dougherty said that he hasn’t personally been a victim of gun violence. However, as a former adjunct professor at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance and  a teacher at the Marian Anderson Young Artist Program, he met kids who have been directly affected by it, as well as their family members who have also experienced its impact.

“It’s like a ripple effect. It’s like a rock dropping into a lake. We don’t consider the wide-ranging impact of losing a loved one, and for generations, how this can impact communities,” Dougherty said.

He highlighted how important it is to create friendships while making music with others. This includes everything from getting to know the venue, to practicing the music together, to the ways musicians connect and support each other during rehearsals.

Terrez McCleary, one of the program’s community partners who attended last Saturday’s performance at City Hall, said having a space to honor her daughter’s memory was comforting.

“It was actually a great event. I enjoyed the music, and the dancing. It was amazing,” McCleary said.

McCleary, co-founder of Moms Bonded by Grief, started the organization in 2017 to provide a safe place for mothers to share their experiences with each other without being judged.

She encouraged other mothers who lost children to gun violence to share their stories as a way to heal.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that William “Bill” Dougherty, a former Temple University adjunct professor, teaches full-time at the University of Washington in Seattle and that the Hearing Philadelphia ensemble is a newly launched  community music project that includes student, amateur and professional string players, woodwind players, percussionists, brass players and vocalists. They had their first performance at City Hall recently.

McCleary said she choked up talking about her 21-year-old daughter Tamara Johnson, who died from gun violence in 2009. Johnson was a college student aspiring to be a nurse, balancing her studies with full-time work to care for her daughter.

But in March of that year, McCleary said it all changed.

“I started getting emotional when I was sharing my story because this is my granddaughter’s senior year, and my daughter is supposed to be here celebrating this milestone with her, her prom, then her graduation and then off to college,” McCleary said. “This is everything that she’s supposed to be experiencing with her mom.”

McCleary said she shortened her story to enjoy the band, the music and the instruments.

“It was like a soothing feeling just going through my body and I didn’t want anything to ruin it,” McCleary said.

The Child Welfare League of America reported that while data linking music therapy to reduce gun violence is limited, music can effectively address the emotional and psychological trauma from such violence, aiding in long-term healing and recovery.

Jabari Evans, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina who studies race and media, said that when people evaluate music programs, they usually use methods that focus on personal experiences, social factors or surveys.

“However, in the last maybe decade or two, there have been some more tried and true reliable instruments that have been used, but I can’t say with great confidence that the research on music programming, especially music therapy, is one that has been very robust,” Evans said.

Evans said that most music projects operate on limited budgets and staff, with funds primarily directed toward gun violence intervention rather than addressing the emotional and social harm inflicted on young people after violent incidents.

“Unfortunately that has generally been the case in my experience and so often the folks who run programs like this, who do the work, and they’re usually spearheaded by individuals who have a real passion for these causes, but it’s very hard to get funding, especially in this environment that we’re in politically,” Evans said.