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. 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.

​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.

Vikram Gadagkar is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University. After receiving his PhD in physics studying exotic states of matter at Cornell University, he transitioned to neuroscience as a postdoc. For his postdoctoral work, also at Cornell, he discovered that dopamine neurons encode song performance in singing birds. The Gadagkar laboratory studies songbirds to understand how the brain gets better with practice, how it switches from practice to performance, and how it evaluates the performance of others.  

ZOOM LINK HERE 7:30 pm Monday May 17

Archived episodes available on NoMAA’s YouTube channel