A Conversation with Dr. Beatriz Ilari — Tuning the Young Mind: How Music Shapes Children’s Brains

Dr. Beatriz Ilari is an expert in music cognition and education, currently a professor at the University of Southern California and a researcher at the USC Brain and Creativity Institute. In this interview, she shares her journey from violinist to scientist, and discusses her groundbreaking research on how music influences brain development, emotional wellbeing, and social behavior in children. From large-scale studies with El Sistema to pandemic-era research on parents using music at home, Dr. Ilari offers fascinating insights into the power of music across cultures and lifespans. (Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity)

Sarah Kisin: Thank you for joining me today. I’d love to start by asking how you got into this field. Can you tell me about your background and what led you to music cognition research?

Beatriz Ilari: Like many musicians, I started teaching private lessons in my teens. I also performed and later decided to go back to grad school to study violin and perform more seriously. While I was doing my master's, some friends studying in Montreal encouraged me to apply for a PhD program there.

I initially thought I would focus more on violin and musicology, but during my first semester, I took a music psychology course—and it changed everything. It was an exciting time. Big names in the field were all there: Albert Bregman, a giant in acoustics; Daniel Levitin, who later wrote bestsellers; Caroline Palmer, who studied performance science. Isabel Peretz and Robert Zatorre were also around. It was an amazing environment for a grad student.

There wasn’t a music therapy program at the university, but I became really interested in the work of Jane Stanley, a music therapist researching premature babies. She developed the PAL—Pacifier-Activated Lullaby—which is used in many U.S. hospitals. Since I wasn’t a music therapist, I approached someone in the nursing school who worked with infants. She advised me to consider working in a lab rather than in a hospital setting, especially after I was deeply moved by the death of one of the babies.

Eventually, I found a mentor in speech and hearing sciences and began researching memory. That’s how I entered music cognition. The work focused more on memory and psychology at first; the brain came later.

Sarah: Wow, that’s such an inspiring journey. I’m also a musician—I play the piano—so it’s great to hear how that passion led you here.

Beatriz: Oh, that’s wonderful!

Sarah: I saw that you’ve worked with the USC Brain and Creativity Institute on research with the El Sistema program. Can you talk about your findings on the neurological benefits of music education?

Beatriz: Absolutely. The El Sistema-inspired project began in 2011 when I joined USC. My colleague Assal Habibi, who now leads the music group at the Brain and Creativity Institute, started that same year. Our lab director encouraged us to form a music research group, so Assal joined as a postdoc and I came on as a music professor.

At the time, there was a lot of talk about the benefits of music education, especially from systemic programs like El Sistema, but there wasn’t much data. Northwestern had started collecting data, but no results had come out yet. So we decided to take it on. I thought it would be a one-year project, but at our very next lab meeting, Assal said we were doing a five-year study! We dove in, even though we had no funding initially.

We focused on kids from low-income communities in L.A. and compared three groups: those in music programs, those in sports (starting with soccer, later also swimming), and a control group from the same background not involved in structured programs. The first year was hard. We worked long hours and did everything ourselves—recruitment, data collection, and even comforting scared kids during brain scans.

Over five years, we looked at cognitive, social-emotional, and neurological outcomes. Some key findings included:

• Children in music programs processed sound more efficiently and developed auditory skills faster.

• We observed cortical maturation in auditory areas.

• There were gains in executive functioning, although other groups caught up over time.

• Parents perceived music kids as less aggressive and more emotionally regulated.

Some of those kids are now in college. It’s incredible to see how they’ve grown and to know we were a small part of their journey.

Sarah: That’s amazing! What about your pandemic research—specifically, the “Parents as Home DJs” study? What did you find about music’s role during COVID?

Beatriz: During COVID, I worked with my former student, Eunjung Cho, on two studies. First, we surveyed parents online about how they were coping and what activities they were doing with their kids. We didn’t ask specifically about music, but it came up often. Music teachers adapted to Zoom very quickly, so many kids continued music lessons when they couldn't do sports.

Then we did a smaller intervention study—about 19 moms used curated playlists with their children. Most weren’t trained musicians, but they found that music helped regulate their emotions and improved interactions with their kids.

Later, we scaled it up to nearly 500 parents. We found that:

• Parents with higher well-being noticed more positive effects of music on their children.

• They were more likely to play music when their children were already in a good mood—not when they were upset.

• They preferred upbeat music but gradually came to enjoy slower, calmer tracks as well.

Our main takeaway: parents benefit most from music they personally enjoy and feel comfortable with. Familiarity and enjoyment really matter.

Sarah: That’s fascinating. Did you come away with any specific advice for parents?

Beatriz: We didn’t write much about home music education, but we did suggest that parents start with music they already enjoy. People are more likely to stick with music that feels familiar and positive. This is true in clinical and educational contexts too—start with something comforting, then gradually introduce new styles.

Sarah: I also read about your research on music and pro-social behavior in children. How does music promote empathy and social awareness?

Beatriz: This has been a long-standing interest of mine. We know from research that synchronizing with others—marching, drumming, dancing—can promote cooperative behaviors.

In one study with colleagues in Germany, we compared children in Brazil and Germany. They did playful activities—like helping a hen “lay eggs” by drumming—and we looked at whether they helped and shared afterward. Helping (like picking something up) is easier than sharing (which involves personal sacrifice). Synchronization seemed to boost prosocial behavior, but cultural differences also played a role.

In our El Sistema study, we found that music kids were more likely to share with unknown others in sticker allocation tasks. We also saw signs of increased cooperation and empathy in young children who participated in early childhood music programs.

Sarah: Do you think it's the music itself or the communal aspect—singing together, working with a teacher—that fosters those behaviors?

Beatriz: I think it’s both. Synchronization creates a momentary bond. When you’re in an ensemble, personal differences fade. The focus is on making music together. It’s a powerful communal experience.

Sarah: You’ve worked with children in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and other places. Are there universal ways that kids respond to music?

Beatriz: Definitely. Kids everywhere want to play instruments. They’re curious, uninhibited, and eager to engage—until they become self-conscious as they grow older.

What differs are cultural expectations. For example, in Hong Kong I visited a "progressive" school, but even there kids lined up quietly and followed strict instructions. Still, once engaged, they showed the same joy and interest in music as kids anywhere.

Sarah: That’s so interesting. From your work with brain scans, are there specific brain areas where music training shows a clear impact?

Beatriz: In our studies, we mostly saw differences in auditory and motor areas, which makes sense. More recently, we’ve been focusing on executive functioning—attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility. We found that music kids performed better on certain tasks at younger ages. Over time, others caught up, but early exposure may provide a head start that helps with other types of learning.

Sarah: Where do you see this field—music and the brain—going in the next 10 to 20 years?

Beatriz: That’s a great question. I see a shift toward mental health and aging. There’s growing interest in how music affects cognition in older adults, including those with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Technologically, we now have better tools—quiet MRI machines, metal-free headphones, even EEG concerts where entire audiences wear caps to measure neural synchronization. There’s also exciting research on improvisation in jazz and hip-hop. I think we’ll see more studies on popular music, diverse genres, and innovative ways of engaging with music.

Sarah: That’s all so fascinating. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it!