Following many years of effort, the New Bio-psychosocial Care Unit for Students and Staff of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (also called myEKPA), was founded in 2020. The purpose of the new Unit has been to promote health and well-being of students and staff, by introducing artistic activities among other interventions. The foundation of the Unit coincided with the advent of the pandemic. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a group of online musical activities addressed to the students and staff members of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens during a specific period of restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, from March 2021 to July 2021.

The advent of the pandemic had a strong impact on students' academic life. Distance learning replaced attendance at the University, and group activities were suspended, not only on campus, but also in the wider community. The pandemic created an unprecedented condition, especially for students, who were facing changes related to their developmental stage, in parallel with the challenges of academic life. According to a nationwide research that took place during culmination of the second wave of the pandemic, the social distance measures and e-learning had a negative effect on students’ mental health, who felt disconnected from social life and the academic environment.

The musical activities presented here were the first projects of the newly established Unit during the second wave of the pandemic. All of them were facilitated by experienced community musicians and their main objective was the provision of a supportive environment to members of the academic community (students and staff) during the quarantine. The promotion of the well-being of the participants was the main goal of the activities. In this perspective, a common component of the four programs was the emphasis on the active musical creation of the participants, in communication and interaction with each other, as well as in strengthening their creative expression. Special reference was made to the preparation process of the facilitators before the launch of the program, with emphasis on the challenges regarding the transfer of musical activities on line.  

• Μουσικές εμπειρίες, δια βίου μουσική μάθηση και ευζωία

Christiana Adamopoulou, PhD, MA, is a music therapist and Adjunct lecturer at the Department of Music of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has twenty years’ experience in teaching music both in mainstream and special needs schools. Since 2019, she works as a music therapist at the “Lilian Voudouri” Creative Arts Therapies Institute. She is also trained in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy. 

Christina Anagnostopoulou is an  associate professor at the Department of Music Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is also the director of the Music Cognition, Computation and Community Lab at the same Department,  and research associate at the Aeginition Psychiatric Hospital in  Athens. 

Nikos Verykokkos was born in Naxos and is a graduate of the Department of Music Studies in NKUA. He holds a diploma in violin from the Attica Conservatory of Athens and a degree in harmony from the Hellenic Conservatory. He is an assistant teacher in public primary education, and also teaches classical and traditional violin in various conservatories. He is an external collaborator of the Laboratory of Music, Cognition, Computation and Community of the Department of Music Studies of NKUA, as well as a scientific collaborator and teacher at the Center for Pedagogical and Artistic Training "Schedia", implementing the special program for vulnerable groups "Music in the Community". He is an active researcher in Ethnomusicology with publications on the music of Naxos. 

Nikos Ziaziaris is a music instructor in community music programs. With a first degree in Law (NKUA, 2010), he continued his postgraduate studies in the Music Education (NKUA, 2020), while today he is a PhD candidate in the Department of Music Studies (NKUA). He has worked as an instructor for El Sistema Greece (2016-2019), for UNICEF and British Council at the Skaramangas Learning Center (2017-2019) and in the educational programs of the National Opera (2019-present). He has also taught in the online music program "MY EKPA" (2021). 

Kiki Kerzeli was born in Kavala. She is working at the Greek National Opera, in the sector of Social & Educational Activities. She studied Music Pedagogy and Psychology of Music at the Ionian University and Music Education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She also implementing educational music programs and works in composition for performing arts. 

Marios Sarellas is a graduate student of the Department of Music Studies, NKUA, and now a postgraduate in Jazz and New Technologies in the same University. From the age of 15 he has been working as a music performer, composer, orchestrator, sound engineer and program manager. In 2016 he created the successful band "Balkan Familia", a musical ensemble of 16 people with a strong presence in the field of folk - art, Balkan and jazz music. He is actively involved in many different types of music and in his orchestrations he mixes oriental and western sounds.