Cohort 
2016

Heidi Clare, MMA

Music Educator & Performer

We have seen in recent times how easy it is to light up a person via music. There is nothing more inspiring and beautiful than a brain lit up.

Current Work

Heidi Clare is an educator and a performer, and she is widely acknowledged as the best old-time fiddler currently performing. Her style and the material that she chooses to perform keeps alive the hundreds-years-old traditions established by immigrant fiddlers who came to America starting in the seventeenth century. She brings this deep understanding of music, creativity, and performance to GBHI where she works to reduce the stigma of dementia and to promote brain health by helping people engage their creative minds.

Strategy

Heidi Clare created the Brain Song Radio concept as a gift to the global “village” that has supported her in her life’s path as an artist. Her teachers, music-loving fans, family, mentors, mentees, and her friends of all species have led her to understand the extraordinary power that music holds for brain health. Music for a healthy brain has been resting on Heidi’s mind for decades, and thanks to the mentorship of behavioral neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller and GBHI, she is coalescing her musings in Brain Song Radio.

Education & Experience

Heidi Clare is a formally trained classical violinist and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Master of Music Education with an emphasis in Kodaly from Holy Names University. She has performed with such stalwarts of acoustic music as Emmylou Harris, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Alison Krauss, Steve Earle, and Ron Thomason. Heidi has six recordings out to date. She has been twice nominated for a Grammy award.

Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI)
2016
Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health
Holy Names University
Kodaly
Master of Music Education
Holy Names University
Music
Bachelor of Arts

Awards & Honors

University of California, San Francisco
2011–2012
Hellman Visiting Artist

Videos