In 2007, Daniel Levitin published This is Your Brain on Music, a groundbreaking study of how — as the title suggests — the human brain creates and responds to music. It prompted scientists and musicians to engage in collaborative research and performances. One example occurred here in 2009, when the innovative chamber music ensemble concert:nova performed in darkness, followed by a discussion with a neurologist.
Now, concert:nova is back for more, presenting a Your Brain on Music program Tuesday at the Woodward Theater and April 11 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. This time, audiences will see MRI images of the players’ brains during the program and hear University of Cincinnati neuro-radiologist Lily Wang interpret what she sees. The MRIs were done in advance of the program, while the individual concert:nova musicians listened to or made music.
There will also be additional commentary from Todd Florin, a professor of emergency medicine at University of Cincinnati, Children’s Hospital physician and concert:nova board member. “This will be more an experience than a performance,” he says.
The idea came about after Florin, who also conducts a summer music festival in Cape Cod, read about and shared program information with Ixi Chen, concert:nova’s managing artistic director and clarinetist, about a two-day workshop on music and wellness last year in Washington, D.C. Chen then talked to retired UC neurosurgeon John Tew about a Music and Medicine program.
“I knew about this workshop, so when Ixi told me she wanted to demonstrate how a brain responds to music, it was a wonderful opportunity to bring this information to a wider public,” Tew says.
“Music’s power to heal goes back to ancient times,” he adds, referring to the Orpheus legend and the biblical stories of David. “And I’ve seen what a powerful impact it had on my own patients.”
He introduced Chen to Wang, who is also a violinist. Everyone then began collaborating on this program. Their task was daunting. For Florin, confronting the brain’s capacity — especially for music — is awe-inspiring.
“The complexity is staggering,” he says. “It’s a complicated set of loops the brain deals with in milliseconds. And if you’re reading music, it’s even more complex.”
Some of the brain imagery to be shown belongs to Ted Nelson, concert:nova co-artistic director and a cellist. “As I was going through the MRI, I listened to Bach’s first cello suite. Then they asked me to play the air cello. Apparently, different parts of my brain lit up,” he says, grinning.
Soprano Kemper Florin (Todd Florin’s wife) was able to sing as she went through the MRI, so audiences will view what is called a “cinematic MRI,” one that the doctors will attempt to sync with her voice as she sings works by Schubert and Luciano Berio during the program.
The program does not include complete performance pieces, so that musicians and audiences can focus on specific responses to briefer musical selections. Chen cites the fifth movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14, Opus 131 as an example of how the program will work.
“There are all these weird, incomplete phrases,” she says. “We may play one phrase, stop, ask the audience what they hear, and then replay it all the way through, so it becomes an engaging, immersive musical experience.”
A movement from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet will focus on the Mozart effect, popularized by a French researcher who claimed that listening to Mozart helped boost intelligence. The theory spawned a line of CDs and was taken to heart by a generation of expectant mothers.
Although it wasn’t possible to include live EEGs (electroencephalograms) for this performance, Chen doesn’t rule that out as a future possibility. She wants Music and Medicine to be a regular part of concert:nova’s schedule.
Florin agrees this program scratches the surface — there is so much more to learn concerning the brain on music.
“We want to explore how music affects mental illness and vice versa,” he says. “Why can some people work with music playing and others can’t? When it comes to the intersection of music and biology, there’s a real smorgasbord.”
concert:nova presents Your Brain on Music 8 p.m. Tuesday at The Woodward Theater (1404 Main St. in Over-the-Rhine) and 7:30 p.m. April 11 at Sabin Auditorium, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (3333 Burnet Ave., Avondale). Tickets/more info: concertnova.com
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 4, 2018.
