Summer 2009

Provostial Professor Merges Music, Science, and TechnologyBY KRISTEN MUNSON

In April, celebrated composer and music researcher Jonathan Berger, DMA ’82, was appointed the Denning Family Provostial Professor, a position strategically awarded to support multidis-ciplinary research and teaching at the intersection of the arts, science, and technology. Roberta Bowman Denning,’75, MBA ’78, and Steven Denning, MBA ’78, Stanford parents and long-time supporters, endowed the chair to highlight an area ripe with opportunity for opening new avenues of discovery.

As co-directors of the Arts Initiative and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa), Berger and Bryan Wolf, the Jeanette and William Hayden Jones Professor in American Art and Culture, are helping to expand the role of the arts at Stan-ford and infuse creativity into curricula across all disciplines. Stanford Benefactor sat down with Berger in May to explore his wide-ranging work.

Q. What can music research do for science?

We can often hear patterns that cannot be easily visualized. In this day and age, we’re inundated with information. There is a need to represent data in ways that are intuitive. It turns out translating data into sound is in some ways a much simpler mode of interpretation. For example, for several years I have worked with colleagues in mathematics and medical researchers to develop novel imaging techniques, such as using musical sound to create images that differentiate between malignant and benign cells. What you’re hearing is the chemistry of the cells.

Q. Over the years you have explored the way humans use sound to understand the world. What are you working on now?

I have several projects in the works. The concepts of expectation and surprise in music and timbre have always been fascinating to me as a composer. Both are an integral part of the musical experience, yet they are the two black holes of musical research. I am working with my students to develop quantifiable metrics of timbre and expectation. My creative work often integrates with my research like this.

Q. You have headed SiCa’s Symposium on Music and the Brain, a meeting between top scholars investigating the neuroscience of music, since its inception in 2006. How does this help further your work?

These symposia provide a common ground for establishing collaborative research. This year we explored improvisation and spontaneity and involved performers, musicologists, neuroscientists, and researchers in creativity. Next year the theme is memory, and we hope to include research on cognition, psychology, aging, and longevity. I would like to go beyond music to incorporate visual arts, dance, drama, design, and creative writing as well.

Q. Moving forward, what are your plans to integrate the arts across campus?

Many students come to Stanford with an interest in the arts. There should be no barriers to creative exploration, and the arts should be an inseparable part of the Stanford expe-rience. One way to accomplish that is through residential education, by bringing in cham-ber music groups, planning excursions to the opera, and promoting student creativity. My wife and I oversee Kimball Hall, the arts focus house at Stanford. Our greatest satisfaction is when students with no connection to music whatsoever say they like living there because they never know what they’re going to hear in the hallway. n

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Jonathan Berger, DMA ’82, the Denning Family Provostial Professor, explores effective ways of using sound to convey information. In addition to recent works for interactive electronics, he has written symphonic and chamber works, choral and vocal music, and works for com-puter alone. PHOTO: Palo Alto Weekly

Roberta Bowman Denning, ’75, MBA ’78, and Steven Denning, MBA ’78, have been avid supporters of The Stanford Challenge, as volunteers and as donors. Roberta is a member of The Stanford Challenge Steering Committee and chair of the Arts Initiative Advisory Council; she also serves on the School of Humanities and Sciences Council. Steven is co-chair of The Stanford Challenge Executive Committee and has been a university trustee since 2004; he also serves on the Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. Together, they have given generously to the Arts Initiative, the International Initiative, and the Graduate School of Business.

PHOTO: Lynn Saville