Al Bustan Lecture Hits the High Note

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Science and the sublime met on Thursday, March 12, in Bathish Auditorium, for an evening of aural delight. Held under the auspices of Al Bustan Festival, “When Music Sings, The Brain Listens and the Heart Modulates” was a concert-lecture of a unique sort, given by Kamal Chémali MD from the Cleveland Clinic accompanied by the French pianist Prisca Benoit.

Originally a graduate of AUB and the Lebanese University, Dr. Chémali specialized in neurology in the United States. He studied the piano at the age of 7 and completed the Lebanese National Conservatoire Program at age 17. He continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and he now combines his role as physician and musician. Prisca Benoit, an internationally renowned concert pianist, has given concerts as both soloist and chamber music performer, in the United-States, Japan, Mexico and Europe.

“Music” began Dr. Chémali , “as a therapeutic tool is not a new discovery. It has been used as such in all cultures since antiquity.” Dr. Chémali guided the audience through the human body’s physiological reactions to music. He explained that our brain interprets music as a combination of sounds, rhythm, pitch, melody, timbre, intensity and tempo. As our body deciphers the signals, it triggers a series of complex interactions. The effect on the listener is a wave of music-induced sensations.

To demonstrate important points in the lecture, Prisca Benoit played especially selected classical pieces. One particularly striking example was Chopin’s Sonate no.2 in B flat minor, more commonly known as the Funeral March. According to Dr. Chémali, it is a piece that modulates the heart rates of listeners. And indeed, as Benoit played the familiar notes of Chopin’s composition, with grave somber chords giving way to racing cadences, the shift in mood was almost palpable.

Dr. Chémali highlighted the ongoing progress being made in musical therapy, and how his research at the Arts and Medicine Institute in Cleveland Clinic is helping patients cope with anxiety, pain, even speech and walking debilitations. The end of the lecture witnessed a duet of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no.1 in G minor, played by Dr. Chémali and Prisca Benoit.