Music! What would life be without music? But where does it come from? Is it inscribed in our DNA? What happens when we listen and play, what roles do the head and body play here? And what can current research tell us about this?
In this new Wunderkammer, too, we ourselves – audience, musicians and speakers – are the “material” of an exploratory journey to one of the most beautiful experiences that connects us to the world: music. But if “music is the highest of all arts”, as the poet, composer and Berlin resident Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman said – what possibilities do we have today, 200 years later, to discover its origins and its “magic power”?
Leading experts from the realms of science and music will accompany us on this research journey: neuroscientist, physician and concert flutist Prof. Dr. Eckart Altenmüller (probably the most sought-after expert for research on music and the brain and in musician’s medicine), Dr. Daniel Miklody and Prof. Dr. Benjamin Blankertz from the Berlin Brain Computer Interface research project, mezzo-soprano Merlind Pohl and composer, pianist and synesthete Christopher Verworner.
Between the oldest human musical instrument, the bone flute, and today’s scientific measuring instruments, a vivid laboratory will be created in the theater hall of the Neuköllner Oper, where we will conduct experiments such as the goose bumps effect and musical memory. Daredevils from the audience can also have themselves “wired and measured”. The focus will be on our own musical perceptions, the possibilities and limits of modern measurements using fMRI and EEG, and the processes involved in listening to, seeing and writing music, as described by the composer Christopher Verworner. And last but not least, there is music: from Lili Boulanger and Gustav Mahler to jazz and improvisation. And – how could it be otherwise – a joint concert with all those present.
With
Prof. Dr. med. Eckart Altenmüller, HfM Hannover
Dr. Daniel Miklody and Prof. Dr. Benjamin Blankertz, TU Berlin / Berlin Brain Computer Interface
Merlind C. Pohl, mezzo-soprano
Christopher Verworner, composer, pianist, ensemble leader VKKO, Munich
Bernhard Glocksin, concept and moderation/Neuköllner Oper
We thank for the friendly support of TU Berlin/BBCI
An event within the framework of the Wunderkammer-Reihe in cooperation with
