Music and the Mind (2018-2019).

This project was led by Dr Sally Walker, together with Prof. Eckart Altenmüller (Director of the Music Medicine Institute, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media) and Ass. Prof. Bronwen Ackermann (University of Sydney), as well as organist Peter Guy and composer Elena Kats-Chernin. The creative output was a lecture/recital “Music and the Mind” and was presented in both Newcastle and Canberra. In the Newcastle Twilight Musical Dialogues series, itofficially opened the Music and the Mind weekend; a co-production with HMRI, University of Newcastle, Christ Church Camerata and Twilight Musical Dialogues. Amidst a “music and medicine” derived musical program and music and the mind lecture, the lecture-recital utilised a screened real-time X-ray visualisation of Walker playing the flute while wearing carefully placed electrodes, using myoMOTION™ software, which features a medically accurate avatar automatically synchronising real-time data. Although the data can be used to detail human movement, the visual effect in the performance was that of a skeleton playing the flute. Given this humorous theme, Walker commissioned Elena Kats-Chernin to write “Apollo’s Gift” (for flute with skeletal visualisation and organ) which referenced various ‘dansemacabres’ from Berlioz, Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Mussorgsky and Liszt.

This project received funding from ANU Visiting Fellow Grant (2018).

Altenmüller, E. and Walker, S. K. A. (2019). Apollo’s Gift: Music and the Mind [lecture-recital]. Canberra: Larry Sitsky Recital Room, Australian National University.

Walker, S. K. A., Altenmüller, E. A. and Ackermann, B. A. (2018). Twilight Musical Dialogues: Music and the Mind [Lecture-recital] in HMRI Music and the Mind Symposium. Newcastle, Adamstown Uniting Church.

Kats-Chernin, E., Walker, S. K. A., Guy, P. (2018). Apollo’s Gift (for flute and skeletal visualisation) [musical composition, world premiere]. Newcastle: Adamstown Uniting Church.

View Sally Walker's Research page.