Janet Graham

Janet Christine Graham (born 4 June 1948) is an English composer, music educator and music therapist.

Graham was born in Consett, County Durham, and studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1966 to 1970 with James Iliff.

After her time at the Royal Academy of Music, she began teaching piano at the Mid Hertfordshire Music Centre while continuing to compose and study with Elisabeth Lutyens.

She married organist Philip Redpath Deane on 8 September 1973.

In 1978,two of her pieces were selected for the BBC Young Composers' Forum.

In 1986 Graham began volunteering at a fortnightly musical evening at a local psychiatric hospital.

After two years of training at the Nordoff Robbins Centre in London, Graham became a music therapist in 1990 and was a therapist and tutor there for 17 years.

In 2004, Janet Graham published a research project in the British Journal of Learning Disabilities titled, Communicating with the Uncommunicative: Music Therapy with Pre-verbal Adults, in which she found improvement of two patients' general communication abilities.

Selected works include:

Her music has been recorded and issued on CD, including:

In 2007 she moved to the Nordoff Robbins North East where she became Head Music Therapist.

Here, Graham established new music therapy projects and lead local courses at hospitals and care homes; she particularly worked with autistic children and adults as well as elderly people with dementia.

After retiring from music therapy in 2013, Graham began composing again and playing music with local groups.