This Certification Program is the culmination of Rian's lifetime relationship with music and sound. For the last four decades he has been researching, experimenting and developing the potential of sound to balance, harmonize and heal on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels.

Rian McGonigal has been a pioneer of the Acoustic Sound Therapy/Healing movement since the late 1980's.
Twice a cancer survivor, he developed and directed the Therapeutic Sound and Color Program for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (where he underwent treatment), Curentur University of Holistic Medicine, The Simonton Cancer & Counseling Center and The Philosophical Research Society. He also mentored for Prescott College while living in Prescott AZ.
His pioneering work was featured nationally on FOX News and internationally on CNN.

Rian began music at 10 years old with standard guitar lessons. At 12 he switched his focus to classical guitar. At 15 he joined a rock n’ roll band while still pursuing his classical practice. In his senior year of high school, his band, Sredni Vashtar,  won the county ‘Battle of the Bands’, and he also won his high school talent show playing solo classical guitar.
In 1976 Rian qualified for master classes in classical guitar in France and Italy, and was awarded the Diploma of Merit from Accademia Chigiana in Sienna, Italy, where Andres Segovia taught until the year before.

Returning from a summer of studies in Europe, Rian obtained management and began performing on the college concert circuit in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. Rian’s manager also got him concerts in nursing homes and drug rehabilitation centers, where the feedback was that his performances were having therapeutic effects besides being entertaining.

Rian felt that the benefits of creating music were holistically healing, and in 1989 he began weekly group drumming workshops at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles where the therapeutic results continued. His drumming workshops were written up in the LA Times and he was contacted by centers for criminal teens and abused children, where the therapeutic results continued. He trained staff at these centers to offer the workshops with the kids.


Rian added crystal singing bowls and Himalayan (aka Tibetan) bowls to his workshops and the feedback was incredible. In 1995 he went to Australia where he was introduced to the Aboriginal Didgeridoo as a healing instrument. He returned from Australia and began using all the instruments, drums, singing bowls, didgeridoo, and classical guitar as part of the Music & Sound Therapy Departments he started at the Simonton Cancer Center, and the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, where he underwent cancer treatment himself during his second bout with cancer.

Since then Rian has expertly expanded the sonic landscape by incorporating resonant gongs, soothing monochords, and an array of diverse percussion instruments, enriching the overall auditory experience.

Rian developed therapeutic methods and techniques using all the instruments and began teaching others how to utilize sound for healing in their lives, and the lives of others.
He has advised holistic medical practitioners how to introduce sound therapy into their practices, and trained thousands how to use sound for healing.

Maria McGonigal joined Rian in Los Angeles in 1995 and they have been working as a team ever since.
She will be a Guest Teacher during the training.