The short version
- PostClassical Ensemble and Johns Hopkins’ Alexander Grass Humanities Institute present Your Brain on Music at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington.
- Johns Hopkins brain researcher Daniel Weinberger curates the evening, setting brain scans, film clips and commentary beside live music from Pachelbel to Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony.
- It is a concert with scientific commentary, not a study, and the ticket listing shows only the November 16 night, so check before you go.
Washington’s PostClassical Ensemble is turning a concert into a lecture on what music does inside the head. Your Brain on Music: Sound, Science & Soul, made with Johns Hopkins University’s Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, runs at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, at 6:30 pm. OperaWire, reporting on November 5, gives two nights, November 16 and 17. The ensemble’s Eventbrite listing shows the 16th, with doors at 6 pm, entry by the front of the building only, and refunds up to two days before. No price appears on the listing page.
The guest curator is Daniel Weinberger, director of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He sets brain scans, film clips and his own commentary beside live performance by the ensemble under music director Angel Gil-Ordóñez, with bass-baritone T. J. Callahan headlining. The listed works are Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the aria “Mache Dich, mein Herze, rein” from Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Felipe Lara’s “Postcard” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, with Rota added in OperaWire’s account. A recorded conversation with the actor John Turturro and a post-concert discussion close the evening.
It is an evening of commentary and performance rather than new research, and the second night is confirmed only by press reports.
