Host Steve Mencher talks with Dr. Deforia Lane, Director of Music Therapy, Univeristy Hospitals of Cleveland.

Music and the Brain

Music as Medicine

Host Steve Mencher talks with Tod Machover, composer and Director, Professor of Music and Media, and Director of the Opera of the Future Group at MIT.

The Future of Music

Host Steve Mencher talks with Alicia Clair about Music Therapy, Alzheimer's and Post-Traumatic Stress

Music Therapy, Alzheimer's and Post-Traumatic Stress

Host Steve Mencher talks with Music and the Brain Series advisor Kay Redfield Jamison about her book Nothing Was The Same.

Music and Grief

Host Steve Mencher talks with Dr. Vera Brandes, Director, Research Program Music Medicine, Paracelsus Medical Private University, Salzburg.

Wellness and Growth: Acoustic Medicine and Music Therapy

Host Steve Mencher and Professor David Huron, Head of Ohio State University's Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory,answer to the question in a conversation on emotions, the brain and music.

Why Do Listeners Enjoy Music that Makes Them Weep?

Dr. Peter Janata, associate professor at University of California, Davis, and member of the Center for Mind and Brain talks with Steve Mencher about how the brain creates an autobiographical soundtrack from our memories.

Music, Memories, and the Brain

Steve Mencher from the Library of Congress talks with Concetta M. Tomaino, Executive Director,Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, about "The Positive Effects of Music Therapy on Health."

The Positive Effects of Music Therapy on Health

Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, Director of the Music, Neuroimaging and Stroke Recovery Laboratories, Beth Deaconess Israel Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, talks with host Steve Mencher about the notable differences between the brain of a musician and a non-musician.

Making Music Changes Brains

Steve Mencher from the Library of Congress talks to Dr. Robin Sylvan, Director of the Sacred Center, El Cerrito, California about "Trance Formation: Music, Trance, Religious Experience, and the Brain."

Trance Formation: Music, Trance, Religious Experience, and the Brain

Steve Mencher from the Library of Congress discusses "States of Mind: Music in Islamic Sufi Rituals" with Dr. Taoufiq ben Amor, Gordon Gray J. Lecturer, Arabic Studies, Columbia University.

States of Mind: Music in Islamic Sufi Rituals

Dr. Richard E. Cytowic, MD, of George Washington Medical Center discusses his presentation "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia."

The Mind of the Artist

Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin of the University of Virginia discuss their presentation "The Mind of an Artist." Debate has long raged about whether and how music expresses meaning beyond its sounding notes. Kubovy and Shatin discuss evidence that music does indeed have a semantic element, and offer examples of how composers embody extra-musical elements in their compositions. Kubovy is a cognitive psychologist who studies visual and auditory perception, and Shatin is a composer who explores similar issues in her music.

Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia

Helfgott and Middleton examine the use of classical music by law enforcement and other cultural institutions as social control, to quell and prevent crime. Their conversation touches on how classical music is viewed in contemporary culture, how it can be a tool for discouraging criminal activity and anti-social behavior, as well as its history as a mind-altering experience.

"Halt or I'll Play Vivaldi! Classical Music as Crime Stopper"

From Mode to Emotion in Musical Communication: Steven Brown, Director of the NeuroArts Lab at McMaster University, discusses his work looking at the expression of emotion in both Western and non-Western musics. Music employs a number of mechanisms for conveying emotion. Some of them are shared with other modes of expression (speech, gesture) while others are specific to music. The most unique way that music communicates emotion is through the use of contrastive scale types. While Westerners are familiar with the major/minor distinction, the use of contrastive scale types in world musics is universal.

From Mode to Emotion in Musical Communication

The Library's Music and the Brain events offer lectures, conversations and symposia about the explosion of new research at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and music. Project chair Kay Redfield Jamison convenes scientists and scholars, composers, performers, theorists, physicians, psychologists, and other experts at the Library for a compelling 2-year series, with generous support from the Dana Foundation.