Classical music and the science of the brain

Culture Monster

All the Arts, All the Time

A new series that takes place in Santa Monica this spring will look at some of the big questions that connect classical music to the basics of human life -- emotion, evolution and the brain itself. The series, put on by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, will include music performances and addresses by three scientists intimately familiar with the overlap of music and the mind.

Dr. Peter Whybrow, a UCLA neuroscientist who has spent a lot of time thinking about creativity, will speak about depression and the way it can both provoke and frustrate musical talent. He’s concentrating mostly on composer Robert Schumann, but says that the patterns often recur.

For artists with mood disorders, he says, three things usually drive their work. “One, the ability to generate intelligence, which is tied to intelligence. Two, a prodigious memory to be able to manipulate those ideas, like keeping a score in your head. Third, mood swings turn things in a novel way. Some artists produce these by taking drugs. But it you have an instability of mood, which Schumann had, you have an acceleration of creativity. You feel an exuberance, which allows you to see things in novel ways.”

Schumann, like Van Gogh and many other artists and writers, likely had a combination of depression and a mild kind of mania called hypomania. “When you’re hypomaniac, you’re very willing to talk to anybody. People like to talk to you, and suddenly you ‘re the center of attention, which excites you because you’ve spent the last three years sitting against a wall drinking beer.”

This is a little different than more conventional mania, which sounds unpleasant. “They became sexually promiscuous, spending money they don’t have, running around insulting people. The manic people tend to fall out of favor.”

For more on the LACO’s series on music and the mind in my Arts & Books article, click here.

-- Scott Timberg

Big Break Runner Up - Gideon Broshy

Runner Up - 16-year-old pianist Gideon Broshy (New York, NY)

Lang Lang’s search for young pianists

Calling all youthful ivory ticklers! Lang Lang wants you to join him on stage...

Lang Lang has embarked on a quest to find young pianists to join him on the Royal Festival Hall stage for a special performance. The Chinese maestro is looking for musicians aged between 5 and 24 to take part in a massed piano event at the London venue on Sunday, May 22.

The pianist is asking aspiring performers to send in videos of themselves at the piano. The deadline for entries is midnight on February 28, with successful applicants being notified on 15 March. Lang Lang will then let everyone know which pieces to learn!

For more information, as well as the address to send videos, head to the Southbank Centre website .

Mozart helping deter loiterers

By Jennifer O'Brien
The London Free Press
http://www.lfpress.com

Borrowing a page from the convenience store industry, London's largest downtown landlord is piping out classical music from the building housing the city's welfare office to drive away drug dealers and other unwanted loiterers.

So far, Mozart and Beethoven have been excellent security guards for the entrance of Market Tower, at the southwest corner of Richmond and Dundas streets, notorious for loiterers.

Market Tower landlord Shmuel Farhi said he's been playing classical music from CDs into the street for a couple of weeks now, to try to clear suspected drug dealers from outside his building.

"It's not a secret that the Dundas and Richmond corner is (known) for drug dealing. We have to do everything in our power to move the traffic there,"

said Farhi, who's also asked the city to move the bus stops from the busy intersection as a pilot project.

"It's my building, and health and safety is very important to us. We want to deter people from doing illegal transactions," he said. "And I love classical music."

But not everyone shares his taste in music.

The traditionally clogged corner entrance seemed to have fewer loiters this week. The music could be heard from the coffee shop across the street.

"We know that it's having a direct impact in terms of keeping loiterers away from that corner," said London police Const. Dennis Rivest. "Our sergeant in foot patrol said . . . the music does discourage loitering by youth,"

Asked if the music violates the city's noise bylaw, bylaw enforcement boss Orest Katolyk said he hasn't heard any complaints.

"If we did get a complaint, we'd look into it, but at this point all the complaints we ever get about that corner have come from the other side - about the loitering," he said. "It's a proven theory that if you play classical music where there is loitering, the loitering seems to move to another area."

For some passersby, the classical notes provide lively ambiance to the area - as they have for months just a few blocks away, outside the Central Library.

The library started piping out classical music last summer for the same reason. Pedestrians there must pass through some Tchaikovsky - but few loitering smokers - to get into the library's Dundas St. entrance.

The idea isn't exclusive to London: Many businesses, especially in the convenience store industry in the U.S., have employed classical music sound systems for years to discourage unwanted gatherings of teens and others at their doorsteps.

Farhi said he hasn't heard any complaints about the music so far. Not that he cares.

"If people complain about it, I turn it up," he said, adding he hopes to inspire passersby with his CDs.

"Classical music is good for the heart and soul," he said. "I'm a lover not a fighter, and I want to put classical music to everyone downtown."

E-mail jennifer.obrien@sunmedia.ca, or follow obrienatlfpress on Twitter.

Market tower. (QMI Agency file photo)

Big Break Online Contest for Young Musicians - Meet the 2010 Winner!

Marcelina was performing Concerto for Marimba, Mvt.3 by Anders Koppel


From the Top and Carnegie Hall announced today that 17-year-old percussionist Marcelina Suchocka from Chicago, Illinois, has been selected by public vote as the Grand Prize Winner of Big Break, a new online contest for young American musicians.

Ms. Suchocka is a student at Chicago's Whitney M. Young Magnet High School and is also a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Percussion Scholarship Program. She was selected from a pool of hundreds of classical musicians who submitted videos to the Big Break contest between October 18 and November 18. Her winning performance of an excerpt from Anders Koppel's Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra can be viewed below.

As Big Break's grand-prize winner, Ms. Suchocka will appear on a national radio broadcast this spring of NPR's From the Top, hosted by Christopher O'Riley. The episode will be taped on Sunday, April 10, before a studio audience at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the performance venue of Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, New York City's sole dedicated classical music station. The previous day, on Saturday, April 9, she will perform at a Carnegie Hall Family Concert in Zankel Hall, produced in partnership with From the Top and hosted by Mr. O'Riley.

Classical-music fans invent titles for 'budget' classics on Twitter at #BudgetClassical

Culture Monster

All the Arts, All the Time

Classical music doesn't often inspire passionate pile-ons on Twitter -- at least not on the Justin Bieber or Kim Kardashian level. So we're happy to note a popular Twitter trend, viewable at #BudgetClassical, in which users riff on the titles of famous classical pieces by re-imagining them as low-budget versions of themselves.

The trend has been seen on Twitter in the past, but it was revived this week and has inspired a number of creative tweets.

L.A.'s own classical radio station KUSC (91.5 FM) has also gotten into the act, taking time out from its pledge drive this week to tweet its own "budget" classics such as Berlioz's "Eggs & Benedict Overture" (after "Beatrice and Benedict") and Bela Bartok's "Picokosmos - Etudes for Casio Keyboard" (after "Mikrokosmos").

Here are some recent #BudgetClassical tweets that are especially witty:

@mahlersoboes: The Abduction from the Seedy Strip Club (after Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio")

@violinscigars: Adagio for String (after Barber's "Adagio for Strings")

@stravinskyite: The Merry Wives of Winston-Salem (after Nicolai's opera "The Merry Wives of Windsor")

@ellisrobbie: Short Ride in a Toyota Celica (after John Adams' "Short Ride in a Fast Machine")

@scareduck: In The Closet of the Mountain King (after Grieg''s "In the Hall of the Mountain King")

@stravinskyite: Slonimsky's Earwax (after Adams' "Slonimsky's Earbox")

@mahlersoboes: The Shrubs of Rome (after Respighi's "The Pines of Rome")

@DaCameraSociety: Schubert's Guppy Quintet (after Schubert's "Trout Quintet")

@NaxosUSA: Holst's The Comets (after Holst's "The Planets")

@mahlersoboes: Nixon in Chinatown (after Adams' "Nixon in China")

As a side note, @stravinskyite happens to be Alan Chapman, a KUSC-FM host and a teacher at the Colburn Conservatory.

Sherry Tang, Piano Solo, From the Top

12-year-old pianist Sherry Tang from Monterey Park, California, a recipient of From the Top's Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, performing Andante & Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14 by Felix Mendelssohn at the Parkersburg, Iowa show (Oct. 13, 2010).

About From the Top

From the Top is the preeminent showcase for America's best young musicians. Through award-winning NPR and PBS programs, online media, a national tour of live events, and education programs, From the Top shares the stories and performances of pre-collegiate musicians with millions each week. Each program provides a compelling and entertaining window into the world of a diverse group of young people, who pursue life with passion, determination, and joy.

Learn more at http://www.fromthetop.org