The Music in the Real World Colloquium presents an intimate conversation with Richard Casper and Deanna Walker on transforming lives through art and music. Casper will be joined by special guest Scotty Hasting, a Black River recording artist and Purple Heart Recipient. This is Pay as You Wish event, with all proceeds going to CreatiVets.

Richard Casper is a dynamic and innovative leader with a unique and powerful life force that has allowed him to successfully use music as a bridge to healing and transformation for himself as well as a vast and growing population of veterans.  He’s created intersections that connect musicians directly with communities in a way that impacts healing and economics, generates art, and creates measurable results.   
 
This event will ask the multi-level question: How can we apply the CreatiVets model to various styles of music-making to reach and help targeted populations? What could we be inspired to do with our musical, creative, and artistic skills once we see what’s been done? We will seek concrete methods for effectively creating change and serving communities through music and art. 

More on Richard Casper: 

Richard Casper is a Marine Corps Veteran, Purple Heart recipient, artist, entrepreneur, and songwriter, with more than 70 placements in film and TV. He is the co-founder of CreatiVets, a non-profit that empowers wounded veterans with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries to heal through art and music. 

Richard Casper was named a CNN Hero in 2022 and one of Time Magazine’s Next Generation Leaders in 2017. He is the feature of TIME’s documentary Evidence of Things Unseen, where he was recognized by President George W. Bush for his life-changing work with veterans. In 2018, he was one of 33 scholars chosen to be in the Bush Institutes’ inaugural Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program. 

Casper served in the USMC from 2003-2007. During the first portion of his enlistment, he was a presidential guard at Camp David. In 2006-2007 during his tour in Iraq, he survived four IED blasts which left him with a left-traumatic brain injury. He also witnessed the death of a friend, which caused him to experience post-traumatic stress.  

After nearly giving up, he discovered art and songwriting as therapeutic forms of expression and went on to attend and graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his idea for CreatiVets began to develop. 

Casper has taught art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Virginia Commonwealth University, Belmont University, and the University of Southern California.  
 
About the Music in the Real World Colloquium: 

Hosted by the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, Music in the Real World will investigate the complex, powerful, and infinitely various roles which music plays in the lives of both individuals and communities, here in Nashville and everywhere on the planet. Diverse perspectives will be sought from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff, as well as from distinguished guest artists, scholars, pedagogues, and laypersons from many walks of life, brought together to campus and to various venues around town. Learn more

This is the first event in the series, which will continue through 2025.