8.30: Registration opens

9.45: Introduction – Prof. Michael Trimble
There have been debates going back for over 2,000 years about the similarities and differences between art forms, and
several writers at various times have venerated music as superior to the rest. This symposium will explore these views from
a multidisciplinary perspective, from the philosophical to the therapeutic, and from the psychological to the neurological. The relevance of the latter, especially as revealed to us with modern brain imaging, will be the subject of discussion, questioning
the current role of neuroscience for philosophy and aesthetics.

Can there be a Science of Musical Understanding?
Prof. Roger Scruton
We speak of understanding and misunderstanding music; music is a form of communication; and the habit of sitting still and listening while music plays is one that demands an explanation, especially at a time when hardly anyone does it. What form should such an explanation take, and is neuroscience likely to have a part in shaping it? And what bearing would the
explanation have on our understanding of other art forms?

The Neurohistory of Art: how Neuroscience Illuminates Individual Inspiration
Prof. John Onians
Neuroaesthetics tends to look to neuroscience for help in the study of universals, such as beauty. Neurohistory uses
neuroscience to help to explain those behaviours of individuals and groups that are exceptional, from the creativity of
particular artists and musicians to the responsiveness of particular viewers and listeners. The talk suggests ways in which
brain scanners and electron microscopes offer insights into the most mysterious activities of the human mind. It also argues
that in doing so, far from reducing the mind’s mystery, they greatly enhance it.

What Classical Musicians can learn from Other Arts about how to Build Audiences
Prof. John Sloboda
There has been a well-documented decline in attendance at classical music concerts at the same time as audiences for other
art-forms (e.g. visual art) have never been healthier. This lecture reviews some of the psychological factors that impact on audiences when experiencing music and other art forms, and outlines some recent initiatives, which encourage musicians to
build a stronger relationship to audiences by learning from other arts, particularly drama.

The Purpose of Art and the Role of Music in Therapy
Professor Raymond Tallis and Prof. Nigel Osborne
Art, like human consciousness, is gloriously useless. It has no biological function but rather is an attempt to come to terms
with, even to heal, the wound in the present tense, which is in part the result of the fact that ideas and experience, content
and form are in conflict. It is an expression of the unique freedom of human beings to make their own sense of the world.
The therapeutic implications of this for those who have been damaged by life or by illness are both self-evident and
ambivalent.

Can Music Portray Happiness and Sadness?
Ian Brown, Stephen Johnson and Ian Ritchie in discussion with the Sacconi Quartet
Debate and Open Forum – Neuroimaging is Important for our Understanding of Aesthetics and our Responses to Art
Profs: Michael Trimble, chairman, John Onians, Nigel Osborne, Roger Scruton, John Sloboda, and Ray Tallis
At St Pancras Parish Church (10 minutes walk from Queen Square)

19.00: Concert introductory talk: Ian Ritchie and Stephen Johnson
19:30: Concert

Sacconi Quartet / Ian Brown piano
Haydn: String Quartet Op77 No1
Schubert: Andantino from Piano Sonata D959
Barber: Adagio
interval
Beethoven: Scherzo from Piano Sonata Hammerklavier Op106
Elgar: Piano Quintet