It is indisputable that, with his operas, Wagner introduced profound new insights relating music, language (poetry) and emotion. It is widely consensual that with his dramas, Wagner intended to explore human mind and behaviour with the power of music. In fact, never before was music so systematically used as a tool for describing and interpreting facts, events, beliefs, desires, intentions, memories and emotions. In the last decades, there has been much advance in the understanding of the cerebral basis of music and its relationships with brain mechanisms of language, cognition and emotion. In short, music has also been shown to be a powerful pathway to understand human mind and behaviour...

Presentation

It is indisputable that, with his operas, Wagner introduced profound new insights relating music, language (poetry) and emotion. It is widely consensual that with his dramas, Wagner intended to explore human mind and behaviour with the power of music. In fact, never before was music so systematically used as a tool for describing and interpreting facts, events, beliefs, desires, intentions, memories and emotions. In the last decades, there has been much advance in the understanding of the cerebral basis of music and its relationships with brain mechanisms of language, cognition and emotion. In short, music has also been shown to be a powerful pathway to understand human mind and behaviour with the modern tools of neuroscience.

Therefore, Wagner’s bicentennial could be an excellent opportunity for a meeting, summarizing the recent advances of brain research on these themes.   Certainly, this Symposium is not addressed only to people who appreciate Wagner’s Operas. It is not addressed only to specialists in brain research either. Lectures by the invited speakers are intended to be clear enough to be assimilated and enjoyed by a vast audience interested in Music, Art, Science and human creativity.

Organization

Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Goethe-Institut, in collaboration with Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da UNL, Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT),  Instituto Superior de Ciências da Saúde Egas Moniz, Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurologia, Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurociências, Sociedade Portuguesa de Neuroradiologia, Ordem dos Médicos, Associação Portuguesa de Educação Musical  e Círculo Richard Wagner de Portugal

Coordinators : Armando Sena (Lisbon) Robert Zatorre (Montreal)

Program

Saturday, May 25, 2013

09.00h Registration 09.30h Welcome to the meeting

• 10.00 Wagner and Science, Armando Sena (Lisbon)
• 10.30 OPENING LECTURE: The Cerebral Basis of Music, Robert Zatorre (Montreal)

11.15 Coffee-break and Poster Communications

Act I: Music From The Brain, Music For The Brain

• 11.45 Music Semantics and the Brain, Stefan Koelsch (Berlin)
• 12.15 Music and Language Learning, Daniele Schön (Marseille)
• 12.45 Emotions in the Brain, Stefan Koelsch (Berlin)

13.15 Lunch and Poster Communications

• 14.00 Musical Rhythms and Auditory-Motor Integration in the Brain, Virginia Penhune (Montreal)
• 14.30 Musical Training and Brain Plasticity, Lutz.Jäncke (Zurich)
• 15.00 Musical Disorders, Timothy Griffiths (Newcastle upon Tyne)
• 15.30 Music as a Tool for Human Development, Paulo Maria Rodrigues (Aveiro) and Helena Rodrigues (Lisbon)

16.00 Coffee-Break and Poster Communications

Act II: Wagner, Music And The Brain

• 16.30 The Language of Music in Wagner, Siegfried Mauser (Munich)
• 17.15 Wagner Today, Paulo Ferreira de Castro (Lisbon)
• 17.45 CLOSING LECTURE: António Damásio (Los Angeles)

18.30 End of the Meeting

21.00 Dinner

Invited speakers

• António Damásio, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
• Armando Sena, CEDOC-Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa e Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa–Central, Lisboa e Instituto Superior de Ciências da Saúde Egas Moniz, Monte da Caparica, Portugal
• Daniele Schön, INSERM U 1106, Institut de Neurosciences de Systèmes, Marseille, France
• Helena Rodrigues, Centro de Estuds de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM). Laboratório de Música e Comunicação na Infância, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
• Lutz Jäncke, Institute of Psychology, Department of Neuropsychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
• Paulo Maria Rodrigues, Departamento de Comunicação e Arte, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
• Paulo Ferreira de Castro, Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM), Departamento de Ciências Musicais, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
• Robert Zatorre, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Siegfried Mauser, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, Germany
• Stefan Koelsch, Cluster of Excellence «Languages of Emotion», Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• Timothy Griffiths, Cognitive Neurology, Newcastle University Medical School, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
• Virginia Penhune, Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Motor Learning and Neural Plasticity, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada