Oksana Zharinova-Sanderson

Oksana Zharinova-Sanderson was trained as a classical pianist in the Western Ukraine where she grew up. Her work as a music therapist in the last 20 years has been firmly grounded in the principles of the Nordoff Robbins approach to music therapy, with its focus on detailed listening, musical imagination and musical potential.

Since training on the Nordoff Robbins Masters programme over 20 years ago, she has worked in Berlin with traumatised refugees and torture victims and developed extensive experience in this area of music therapy practice. She has subsequently worked as a music therapist heading developments of Nordoff Robbins music therapy in the North West of England. She delivered and set up sustainable music therapy projects in a wide range of client contexts and organisations, including neurological rehabilitation, special needs, dementia, oncology and mental health. She was also closely involved with the development of the Manchester base of the Nordoff Robbins Masters training programme and is a tutor and supervisor on it. She is a keen and passionate educator, focusing on learning from music of all kinds in order to bring its vast potential to the service of vulnerable people.

In her capacity as Director of Music Services for Nordoff Robbins, since 2015 Oksana has been instrumental in the design and development of the Nordoff Robbins graduate employment scheme as well as other quality related developments supporting music therapists in deepening their practice and experience as Nordoff Robbins practitioners.