Mourning for Prof. Dr Petra Jürgens

All too soon, we have to say goodbye to our esteemed colleague Petra Jürgens. In the last issue of “Unser Friedensau”, which appeared in April 2025, we published a musicological text by her about “listening”. Now she succumbed to cancer on May 18, 2025. She worked at Friedensau Adventist University for more than 27 years. Initially, she designed the music therapy specialization as a master's subject at the Institute of Church Music. This was soon followed by the founding of the Institute for Music Therapy at Friedensau Adventist University. In 2010, she established the Master's degree course in Music Therapy, which she headed from the beginning until March 2025. At the same time, she ran the “Institute for Music Therapy Berlin” for many years, which she took over and which was founded in 1962 in Berlin-Zehlendorf as the first music therapy training center. She was the only person to simultaneously manage a private music therapy training institute and a state-recognized course of study in “West” and “East” and to combine both institutions in terms of content and as a person. Her name is associated with the history of East German music therapy like no other. She wrote her doctorate on this subject in Hamburg and was herself both a representative and a critical observer of it.

She was a passionate musician and music therapist

For the last four years, Petra Jürgens concentrated her teaching activities entirely in Friedensau. The place became even more of a professional home to her. During the ups and downs of her illness, she repeatedly drew her passion, strength and courage to face life from her work with students and music. She embodied a deep confidence and desire for life for others. With her unique charisma, Petra was a source of inspiration beyond the circle of students. She will be fondly remembered for her way of getting to the heart of situations with playful and phenomenological descriptions and at the same time keeping them in suspense. She had the ability to pursue topics quietly yet with persistent energy and to integrate methodical and creative improvisational elements into teaching. We will remember Petra with gratitude and miss her timbre. On June 24, a service was held in memory of Petra Jürgens in the Friedensau Chapel.

Prof. Andreas Bochmann, Head of the M.A. Counseling programme:

When church musician Wolfgang Kabus brought Petra Jürgens to Friedensau in the 1990s, it was a gamble. Would the orchid subject of music therapy be able to establish itself at such a small university? Would it fit into a place that had been characterised by church music and, above all, theology for over 100 years? Thanks to Petra Jürgens, the answer is clearly ‘yes’.

With a great deal of vigour and her very own profile, she has successfully built up her profession over more than 25 years. In doing so, she was able to draw on many years of training experience at her renowned Institute for Music Therapy in Berlin. The links to theology became clear, for example in the symposium she organised in 2020 entitled ‘The Timbre of Charisma and Spirituality in Music Therapy’. And her courage for music therapy found good ground: the student numbers proved her right.

The fact that she died on the Sunday after Easter probably has symbolic significance for all those who knew Petra Jürgens. A life dedicated to music and its healing power was completed with music from Berlin Cathedral. It was the last sounds that accompanied Petra as she breathed her last after a long, serious illness. Friedensau mourns.

Dr Regina Lorek, her closest colleague, who took over the music therapy degree programme:

I got to know Petra Jürgens in 2012 when I started the Master's programme in Friedensau. At the time, she had just overcome her first cancer and led the students with energy, eloquence and great mental agility.

When Petra closed the location of her institute in Berlin in 2021/22, it was important to her that its 60-year history should henceforth be housed at the Institute for Music Therapy at Friedensau Adventist University. As a result, her collection of instruments, among other things, found its way into the music cabinet at Friedensau Adventist University. With her death, this will now be expanded once again to include her private instruments. Petra Jürgens brought me back to the university in 2021, also to cover for the increasingly frequent cases of deputisation. She drew her life energy from her work in Friedensau throughout the many episodes of her illness. Petra remained present until the end (even when she was unable to be there) and full of ideas for future projects. She always kept a door open to the hope of miracles ...

Graduates and students of the Master's programme in Music Therapy:

"I am very grateful that I was able to experience Petra for three years as a student in Friedensau. She had a decisive influence on the first steps on the path of my music therapy ‘self-awareness’. With her unique, subtle, humorous, sometimes confrontational, but always supportive manner, she helped me to “clean my inner mirror” ... Asking questions rather than having answers was one of her particular strengths. She lived according to the motto “What I want to force, she forces me to do”, which was particularly impressive in recent times: “staying” in uncertainties, challenges and difficult times instead of enduring them." Benjamin Beckmann; Graduate of the Master's programme

"What stays with me ... is the saying “If you want to keep a flock of sheep, keep the pasture large”. This has taught me that new thoughts and perspectives can only spread if I give them the right space. This helps me a lot in interactions and especially now in my current research context." Rabea Beier, Graduate of the Master's programme

"I am deeply touched. Petra will remain deeply anchored in my memory and in my life." Cecile L'Épée; Graduate of the Master's programme

"Petra inspired me again and again with her bright curiosity for the depths of our own perspectives. She helped us to get to the bottom of things. I will never forget her enthusiasm for our creative ideas, nor the funny saying she used to delight the philosopher in me during our first seminar: “Nothing is too stupid for a philosopher”." Erik Neumann, Student on the Master's programme in Music Therapy

All Photos: Friedensau Adventist University | Andrea Cramer