Sound Waves and Brain Waves – Playing by Ear: The Improvising Mind

Sound Waves and Brain Waves – Playing by Ear: The Improvising Mind
Monday, November 23 at 7:30pm

In this series we explore the intersections between jazz music and science, from how we experience sound and rhythm, to musical memories and the creative process. Join multiple Grammy nominee and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón for an intimate online performance combined with conversation with scientists from Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, where Zenón is currently jazz artist-in-residence.

​Miguel Zenón​ represents a select group of musicians who have masterfully balanced and blended the often contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. Widely considered as one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists of his generation,he has also developed a unique voice as a composer and as a conceptualist, concentrating his efforts on perfecting a fine mix between Latin American Folkloric Music and Jazz.

Michael N Shadlen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute and Professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University Medical School. He is a member of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and the Kavli Institute of Brain Science. Dr. Shadlen obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees at Brown University, and his PhD at UC Berkeley. He trained in clinical neurology at Stanford University, where he joined William T. Newsome’s lab, as a postdoctoral fellow. He then joined the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of Washington, where he remained until 2012. His research focuses primarily on the neural mechanisms that underlie decision making. He is also a jazz guitarist. Honors include the Alden Spencer Prize, the Golden Brain, the Karl Spencer Lashley Award and elections to the National Academy of Medicine.