Meet the Couple Behind MusicWorks in Havertown

You can’t say that Lori and Jerry O’Leary don’t have music in their lives.

The Havertown couple created and run the music therapy non-profit organization MusicWorks, which serves children and young adults who have many types of challenges.

Haverford Patch will be writing about the organization on Monday, but today’s article’s focus is on the O’Learys, who met at a relative’s wedding in Havertown many years ago.

Lori, a native of Queens, New York, used to travel to the Main Line as a child visiting relatives. Before starting MusicWorks with her husband, she earned an MBA in marketing and finance and worked in clothing product development and sourcing with Associated Merchandising Corporation. After moving to the area she joined The Franklin Mint to work in new product development and marketing, artist relations, and licensing.

Jerry was born in Southwest Philadelphia and moved to Havertown in 1967. Music had always been a part of his life since he was a kid when he and his parents would sing and make music together.

Despite always playing music, Jerry went into the banking industry for many years, part of which he spent as a lender at Meridian Bank and then CoreStates Bank. But one year he took a buy-out from the company and followed his passion by earning his Master’s degree in music therapy from Immaculata University.

In the office, located at 2050 West Chester Pike, they hold group therapy sessions for children and young adults, but they also continue to provide in-home one-on-one therapy, too.

“They learn, they grow, they make friends. That’s very important for a child with a challenge,” Lori told Haverford Patch. Lori was recently a winner of the KYW Newsradio 2013 Women’s Achievement Awards.

Skilled in many songs from the early part of the 1900s from years of singing with his parents, Jerry delights senior citizens and brings them back to their youth, he said. He said he can see how excited and happy they get when he arrives for their therapy sessions.

“It makes me feel humbled,” he said of the impact that he has on MusicWork’s clients. 

“There is a certain power to music,” he said. It’s such a common medium. Everyone can relate to music.”