‘Music To Die For’: New online project explores connections between music, love and loss

May 2025

Phillipa Anders has worked in music her entire life – as a teacher, project manager and in a variety of leadership roles. Her work has taken her into schools, care homes, prisons and charity settings. She has worked for internationally renowned orchestras, opera houses and concert halls around the UK and, four years after her husband died, she co-founded a new project to help people remember their loved ones through music. Here’s her story…

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“In November 2020, my husband, Rob, experienced pins and needles in his hand and lower arm. In December 2020, he was diagnosed with a Glioblastoma (an aggressive brain tumour, which usually comes with a prognosis of 12-18 months). Rob was a fit and healthy 49-year-old. Ten days later, on the day he was due to have emergency surgery, he died. 

 

As WAY members know all too well, the loss of a life partner turns you and your life totally upside down. Your identity has gone overnight. Your friends are likely to change. Your future plans and dreams may have totally disappeared. Your goals will have to be reconsidered. You’re at the start of a new chapter, whether you like it or not. A chapter of personal redesign. Of re-shaping and re-orientating. You have to find your inner strength, an uninvited strength that you never imagined you’d have to let in. You’re in the most painful place you can imagine, yet life has to somehow go on. 

 

Things started to change for me in January 2024 when I attended a Thinktank on music, loss and grief. At the event I met the clinical psychologist Dr Hazel Harrison. We clicked and started dreaming up an idea that we both felt deeply passionate about. One year later, the project ‘Music To Die For’ was founded and with that I have found a new purpose, a sense of the new me. Working on this project has helped me piece myself back together, albeit differently from before. I’m starting to see a version of me that I know Rob would be proud of.

What is ‘Music To Die’ For?

 

Put simply, ‘Music To Die For’ is a project that gathers stories of love, loss and joy, creating a space to explore how music supports us with grief. Through the project, we invite you to do one simple but powerful thing:

Tell us about a piece of music and how it connects you to someone you’ve lost.

By collecting and sharing these stories, we want to celebrate the power of music in keeping memories alive and helping people feel less alone in their grief. The project is built on the idea that music has a unique ability to connect us with memories. Whether it’s a road trip song, a tune you listened to while cooking together, or music that brings comfort in difficult times, these soundtracks shape our lives and the way we remember those we’ve lost.

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The stories people share with us may be featured on the project’s website, via social media, at live events or in future publications. Hazel and I feel hugely privileged to work on ‘Music To Die For’. We treat every story with the upmost care. Reading these stories can give you a renewed sense of perspective: a sense that we’re not alone, that we’re part of a group (a group that none of us wanted to ever be a part of) where there is an immense, quiet courage shown every single day by every single one of us. 

 

If you would like to share your story with us, please visit our website, where you can also read other people’s stories and hear the music that is important to them.” 

 

You can find out more at www.musictodiefor.co.uk