In Tuesday’s (6/14) Houston Chronicle, Colin Eatock writes, “Music—people sing it, play it and listen to it. In some form or other, it’s one of the great universals of human culture. But how much do we really know about it? Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music is hoping to shed a little light on that question this week with a conference called Exploring the Mind Through Music. And from tonight through Thursday, the conference will present five free public lectures. ‘The human brain has more connections in it than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy,’ says composer and conference organizer Anthony Brandt. … Like many musicians, Brandt is intensely interested in how music ‘works.’ But increasingly, neurologists, biologists, psychologists and other scientists are concerning themselves with how the brain processes music. … ‘We’re trying to encourage dialogue,’ he explains. ‘So we’re bringing in 15 musicians and 15 scientists, engaged in all sorts of research. The musicians will be studying with science faculty, and the scientists will be studying with music faculty. The idea is that the musicians will learn how to design experiments, how to evaluate research and what we know about the brain. The scientists will learn from the musicians how music is structured, what it’s capable of doing and things like that.’ ”
Posted June 15, 2011
