Diaz, Frank M.
Frank M. Diaz is professor of music education and founding director of the Office of Wellness and Arts Health Initiatives (OWAHI) at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he also serves as affiliate faculty for the Cognitive Science Program. Through OWAHI, he has developed comprehensive wellness programming that reaches thousands of musicians annually through workshops, courses, and community outreach. He holds a Ph.D. in music education with an orchestral conducting emphasis from Florida State University.
His research examines the intersections of mindfulness, cognitive science, and musician well-being, and has appeared in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, and the Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education, among other venues. He is a sought-after clinician and presenter who has brought mindfulness-based work to conservatories, music education conferences, and performers across the country, and he is an active conductor who has worked with orchestras and educators in over thirty-five states.
Frank’s engagement with mindfulness predates his academic career by decades. He began meditating as a teenager, and it was a formative encounter with performance anxiety as a young musician that first revealed to him the profound connection between contemplative practice and musical life—a connection he has spent his career exploring, researching, and teaching to musicians at every stage of their work.