Virtual Faculty Roundtable

How does music help us to flourish?

may 27, 2021

6:30 - 8:30 PM

(8:00 - 8:30 Optional q&A)

Join us for our next virtual Faculty Roundtable to discuss the ways music helps us to flourish with Indre Viskontas and Awet Andemicael.

about our Speakers

Indre Viskontas

Neuroscientist and Operatic Soprano | Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco | Professor of Sciences and Humanities, San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Professor Indre Viskontas is a musician and a cognitive neuroscientist. She is affectionately known as Dr. Dre by her students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is pioneering the application of neuroscience to musical training, and at the University of San Francisco, where she was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Psychology. She received a BSc in psychology and French literature from the University of Toronto, an MM degree in vocal performance from SFCM and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA. Dr. Viskontas has published more than 50 scientific articles and chapters related to the neural basis of memory and creativity, including several in top scientific journals. Her book, How Music Can Make You Better, was published by Chronicle in 2019. Her three 24-lecture courses, Essential Scientific Concepts, Brain Myths Exploded and How Digital Technology Shapes Us have been released by The Great Courses, and are among the top nonfiction titles on Audible.com. She is also the Creative Director of Pasadena Opera, where she directed The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, a chamber opera based on the case study written by Oliver Sacks, and Proving Up by Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli. This summer, she makes her West Edge Opera directorial debut with Katya Kabanova. She also co-hosted the docuseries Miracle Detectives on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and Science in Progress on several streaming channels and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, major radio stations across the US, and several other television programs. She hosts the popular podcasts Inquiring Minds, with more than 13 million downloads, and Cadence: what music tells us about the mind, which was a 2021 Webby Honoree. She is also the Communications Director at the newly-formed Sound Health Network, an initiative of the NEA and UCSF in collaboration with the NIH, the Kennedy Center and Renée Fleming.

Awet Andemicael

Theologian and Operatic Soprano | Associate Dean of Chapel and Assistant Professor Adjunct of Theology at Yale Institute of Sacred Music

Active as a performer, writer, consultant, and educator, Awet Andemicael works primarily in the areas of music and theology. As a concert and operatic soprano, she has sung at festivals and concert venues across North America, Europe, and Japan. She has received music awards from numerous organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council and the Oratorio Society of New York. Her current theological work focuses on the intersection of divine glory and human transformation, for which she received a 2015 Karl Schlecht Foundation Stipend to spend several months as a researcher in South Africa, based at the University of Stellenbosch. She has also written and served as a consultant on music and theology, refugee studies, and interfaith engagement, including involvement in scholarly working groups, membership in the Jerusalem-based Elijah Interfaith Institute Academy, and an interview featured on Swedish public television. Publications include essays in the journal Worship; The Christian Century; the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre’s Forced Migration Review; and KANERE, a refugee-run independent news magazine based in Kakuma, Kenya. Her research study, Positive Energy: A Review of the Role of Artistic Activities in Refugee Camps, was published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2011. More recently, she authored a chapter on Christian identity and interfaith engagement in “For Such a Time as This: Young Adults on the Future of the Church” (Judson Press, 2014). Committed to education and mentoring, she has taught courses on music and worship and theologies of reconciliation at the Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo in Beni and has led vocal master classes in Brittany, France, and at the University of Notre Dame. She also leads workshops on singing and Christian spirituality.

Upcoming Events

Virtual Faculty Roundtable, June 17, 2021

Featuring Harvard Professor of Genetics George Church and Asymmetrex Founder & Director James Sherley. More details to be announced soon!