Tamar Hadar, PhD, is co-head of the Music Therapy Program at the School of Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, where she leads the program together with Dr. Maayan Salomon-Gimmon. She completed her M.A. and PhD in Music Therapy at Bar-Ilan University. Her doctoral research - supervised by Prof. Dorit Amir - compared clinical improvisation and jazz improvisation. Tamar's first postdoctoral fellowship was at NYU under the mentorship of Prof. Kenneth Aigen, where her work centered on analyzing Nordoff and Robbins's clinical improvisations and developing a theory of time around them. Her second postdoctoral fellowship, under Dr. Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, focused on applying a sociological theory, tight-loose (T-L) in music therapy, alongside a musicological, multicultural perspective.
Tamar is a music therapist, supervisor, and lecturer, working with children and families in an early intervention unit and in private practice. She specializes in child - parent interventions, particularly in the context of trauma and displacement. Her research focuses on clinical improvisation (theory and assessment), music therapy in trauma & displacement, child-parent music therapy, and culturally sensitive music therapy. She also originated a time-model for analyzing clinical improvisations.
References
Benjamin, J. (2004). Beyond doer and done to: Recognition and the intersubjective third. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 73(1), 5-46.
Hadar, T. (2025). Moments of thirdness in music therapy: A qualitative meta-analysis embedded in Jessica Benjamin's intersubjectivity. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 17(3).
Hadar, T., & Aigen, K. (2025). A Theory of Time in Music Therapy: A Model for Analyzing Nordoff–Robbins Clinical Improvisation. Journal of Music Therapy, 62(2), thaf014.
Hadar, T., & Rabinowitch, T. C. (2025). Tight or Loose? Reframing Musical Relationships Between Client and Therapist in Music Therapy. Music Therapy Perspectives, 43(2), miaf018.
Hadar, T. (2024). Parenting in the Face of Trauma: Music Therapy to Support Parent–Child Dyads Affected by War and Displacement. Children, 11(10), 1269.
Roginsky, E., Hadar, T., Midhat-Najami, N., Saada, B., Khoury, R., & Hebi, M. (2025). Breathing war, dreaming connection: Dialogue as an ethical foundation for collaborative work of Palestinian and Jewish music therapists in Israel. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 17(1).
Hadar, T., & Amir, D. (2018). Discovering the flute's voice: On the relation of flutist music therapists to their primary instrument. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 27(5), 381-398.
