Music on the Brain

Join the Zuckerman Institute’s 2019 Artist-in-Residence jazz pianist/composer Helen Sung and Dr. Michael Shadlen for a special evening of music and a conversation, exploring the latest research on the neural mechanisms that guide decision making.

Music on the Brain is a collaboration between the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute.

Helen Sung is an acclaimed pianist/composer. Winner of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, she has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Berklee College of Music, and Columbia University, where she was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Based in New York City, Helen maintains a schedule of performing/touring, teaching, and recording: her latest project Quartet+, made possible by a NYFA NYC Women’s Fund grant, was released on Sunnyside Records in September 2021. In addition to her own band, Helen has performed with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, and fine ensembles including the Mingus Big Band and Cecile McLorin Salvant’s Ogresse. Helen is a Steinway Artist.

Dr. Michael Shadlen is a Professor of Neuroscience, Principal Investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. By investigating the neural mechanisms that guide decision making, Michael Shadlen offers a window into fascinating aspects of higher brain function, such as reasoning, planning and strategizing. His research further reveals that disruptions to these mechanisms could play a role in cognitive impairment. With improved knowledge of these critical neural processes, we may one day manipulate them to treat a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders that affect cognition.

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Host or Publisher Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute