Island Life and Death

studying cultural change around death, dying and bereavement

Songs travel…

…so did Jill Halstead and Wolfgang Schmid in April 2026 with the awarded short film Last(ing) Music – An essay on music therapy at end of life.

By Wolfgang Schmid

[This is the English version of the news story from University of Bergen’s pages on Halstead and Schmid’s award-winning film]

Wolfgang and Jill went to Klagenfurt and Tromsø, to disseminate and discuss their research from their projects IMAGINE and Music4Change. At the Gustav Mahler Private University in Klagenfurt, they showed the film Last(ing) Music as part of their performance-presentation Hearing loss – doing loss. At TREFF 2026, the Tromsø Educational Film Festival, the film was screened and awarded by the festival’s organization committee as their definitive favourite movie from a total of 75 films submitted from 21 countries.

Poster frame Last(ing) Music designed by Lars O. Haaheim. Photo: Frode Ims

What is a song? What is its power?   

Last(ing) Music explores these questions through the story of Kari, a 49-year-old woman receiving palliative care, and her relationship with the song The Boy from Ipanema, as sung by Ella Fitzgerald. The film traces Kari’s experience with this song across a lifespan, revealing how music can remain with us by carrying memories, emotions, and a sense of self across time. It also shows how Kari’s engagement with the song mediates her experience of total pain, a form of existential pain that is at once physiological, emotional, and relational.

The film has been premiered in May 2024 at the Bergen Festival. Its production is the result of a two-years collaboration between Wolfgang Schmid and Jill Halstead, together with Frode Ims and Lars Olaf Haaheim from Bergen Media City, and Morten Norheim from the Grieg Academy at University of Bergen. Since its premiere in 2024, the film has been shown at the houses of literature in Bergen and Oslo, and at the Grieg International Research School of Interdisciplinary Music Studies in Stavanger in 2024, among others. Last(ing) Music has shown to be suitable for a public audience and for students in music pedagogy, music therapy, as well as those studying medicine, nursing, psychology, and social sciences. It has been shared with health care professionals at the Palliative Centre Haukeland University Hospital, Haraldsplass Deaconess Hospital, and the Dignity Centre in Bergen. As part of the IMAGINE project, addressing questions of care and self-care in times of loss and grief, the film is regularly included in seminars of TVEPS, an interdisciplinary workplace learning initiative, offering training for students across the faculties of University of Bergen and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.

Last(ing) Music journeying to Klagenfurt and Tromsø

In April 2026, Jill and Wolfgang travelled with the film to two international venues for research dissemination, one in Klagenfurt and one in Tromsø, each characterized by distinct audiences and contexts, as well as differing approaches and purposes. At the Gustav Mahler Private University in Klagenfurt, the film was part of their 90-minutes performance-presentation for 60 international, interdisciplinary students, educators and researchers gathering for an Erasmus+ exchange from seven Universities in Austria, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Hungary, and Croatia.

On Tuesday 14th of April, Jill and Wolfgang presented the film at the Forschungsforum (research forum), a joint event of University of Klagenfurt, Gustav Mahler University of Music, and PH Kärnten. Jill’s and Wolfgang’s performance-presentation builds on a trilogy of creative and research-based works, including the digital arts exposition Anatomy of Loss published in Research Catalogue, the article Hearing Loss – Listening to End-of-Life Transitions. An arts-based approach to midlife mourning, and the end-of-life case study Last(ing) Music, realised as a film essay.  Though distinct in form and context, these three formats are interconnected through their shared exploration of music, care, and understanding experiences of loss and end-of-life. With the trilogy, Jill and Wolfgang demonstrate how interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration can operate in educational and professional contexts, linking artistic research, interprofessional practice, and learning. Each part of the trilogy stands on its own, offering a distinct entry point into the theme, altogether showing how arts-based and collaborative methods can deepen understanding and connection across disciplines.

On Friday, 17th of April, the film was screened at TREFF, the Tromsø Educational Film Festival. TREFF is a biennial international event organized by Result, The Resource Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, at University in Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway. The target audience are filmmakers, educators, and pedagogues in higher education. The festival’s theme is all about moving education, exploring film as a pedagogical tool in higher education, featuring screenings, workshops, and discussions. Selected from a total of 75 international films from 21 countries submitted to TREFF in 2026, Last(ing) Music received the TREFF Honorable Mention, awarded by the festival’s organization committee. The committee reasons their decision by pointing out that “the film conveys a powerful story with depth and relevance through simple means. It offers a fantastic example of educators using the power of film as a tool for communication”. Wolfgang’s courage to place themself at the centre of the film telling Kari’s story, “brings authenticity, trust, and a strong human dimension to the learning experience”. The organisers further highlight the film’s careful balance between music, sound, and silence. Two narrators, Jill and Wolfgang, tell Kari’s story after her death, framing it with reflecting passages from literature. Although Kari is no longer alive, the film renders her vividly present through music and narration, offering a cinematic homage. By combining academic reflection with artistic means and storytelling, the film responds to the questions What is a song? What is its power? in a poetic and compelling way.

From the TREFF award ceremony: Lars O. Haaheim, Frode Ims, Jill Halstead and Wolfgang Schmid. Photo: Nathalie Blomstereng

Moving education – moving end-of-life care

The two international events differed considerably in audience, context, and modes of dissemination, demonstrating the film’s versatility and wide applicability. Kari’s story moves people, independent of their background, age, education, or origin. After the film screening, attendees in both, Klagenfurt and Tromsø, approached Jill and Wolfgang to share their own stories with music at the end of life with a loved one. As such, the film invites for personal reflection and compassion and provides an example for how music connects us throughout life and beyond. Watching the film creates a sense of belonging across space and time, as Sean Street, quoted in the film, articulates it regarding the nature and power of a song:

“I listen to a song, bringing my own imagined presence to the place of sonic origin, with its context of time and weather, mood and health, and combined with my own current physical space.  It is while carrying all these criteria that I listen. It is both space and time travel.”

Last(ing) Music – An essay on music therapy at end of life is available open access on vitentv.no.

It is intended for anyone who is curious about why music means so much in our lives. It is particularly suited for students and professionals in the healthcare and arts fields.

Link to the Care for Music page: https://careformusic.org/2023/04/03/the-festival/

Link to essay on the film’s premier in the Bergen International Festival, 2024: https://islandlifeanddeath.org/2024/05/25/lasting-music/

Links to projects and initiatives mentioned:

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