For our 2025 season, we’re thrilled to present a new Monday Noon series called BAM!! Insights on the Brain & Music, a set of three presentations by leading neuroscientists who are actively engaged in researching the impact of music on the human brain.
In a statement about his motivation for creating and curating this new series, Festival Artistic Director Marc Neikrug said:
“I’m a firm believer that music communicates to us on a biological level and that the cutting-edge scientific research being done by these brilliant speakers will lead to a more thorough understanding of the immense power exerted by these beautifully organized sounds on our very being. I encourage everyone to attend these presentations to cultivate a better understanding of the cognitive and health benefits that music provides in addition to, or perhaps exactly because of, the pleasures.”
Each BAM!! presentation is held over the course of one hour at St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art.
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Music and the Brain Returns! Marc Neikrug Explains.
The Presenters
MONDAY, JULY 14
HOW MUSIC CAPTIVATES: THE SCIENCE
Elizabeth H. Margulis, PhD, Professor of Music and Director of Graduate Studies in Musicology, Princeton University
MONDAY, AUGUST 4
MUSIC, MEMORY & THE AGING BRAIN
Concetta M. Tomaino, DA, LCAT, MT-BC, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Institute for Music and Neurologic Function
MONDAY, AUGUST 11
MUSIC & CHILD BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Assal Habibi, PhD Associate Research Professor of Psychology and Neurology, USC Brain and Creativity Institute, and Director, USC Center for Music, Brain, and Society