The UMass Amherst Department of Music and Dance is saddened to announce that PhD student Neuba Silva passed away in her home on Saturday, December 20th, after a battle with cancer.
Silva received degrees in music and psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, a master’s degree in music therapy and a certificate in historical singing from Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. She was pursuing a PhD in music education at UMass.
“Neuba absolutely loved her academic life and her colleagues and had high hopes to return to her PhD program, but the good Lord had other plans for her,” said her husband Giovanni Silva. “In her name, I would like to say thank you to all for the support, words and emails sent during this difficult time.”
As a music educator and music therapist, Neuba believed in the transformative power of music making and acknowledged that every human being has an inborn capacity to create beautiful music.
She studied piano with Dr. Chaerin Kim, voice with Professor David Giessow, Hazzanut (cantorial singing) with Cantor Avshalom Tzfira, and historical singing with Professor Lambert Climent.
More recently, Neuba developed an interest in the scientific study of music and in her study The Scientific Study of Music: Does Musical Training Enhance Crossmodal Attention?, she quantified the efficiency of crossmodal attention in musicians and non-musicians using a dual task to examine the extent to which change in visual task demands affect auditory processing. She authored an article titled “The Unfolding of a New Path for Music Educators Through Trauma-Informed Pedagogy in Music Education,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of the Massachusetts Music Educators Journal.
Neuba’s research interest for her dissertation was trauma-informed pedagogy in music education. Areas of study included therapeutic singing for people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, music education and special needs, the neuroscience of singing, and innovative techniques in music education that promote inclusion, well-being, and good mental health.