Thackray Insights: The Science of Song

Thackray Insights invites you to delve deep into eye­ opening topics and explore the unheard stories of medicine.

From asylum bands to chapel choirs, smoking concerts to orchestras, there was a rich and misunderstood musical tradition in 19th century asylums. Music was a source of entertainment and occupation, and a means of solace, self-control and for contact with the outside world. Professor Rosemary Golding’s talk explores the place of music in the dangerous and overcrowded world of Victorian Asylums.

Why are we often drawn back to the music we heard as teenagers? The nostalgia from hearing our favourite songs isn’t just a recollection of old memories, but the result of a deeper and more complex neural response. Join Professor Catherine Loveday for a smash hit talk on the link between music, memory and the brain.

About the Speakers

Professor Rosemary Golding is Professor of Music at the Open University. She is the author of ‘Music and Moral Management in the Nineteenth-Century English Lunatic Asylum’ and is co-editor of the journal ‘Nineteenth Century Music Review’.

Professor Catherine Loveday is a principal lecturer on Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Rehabilitation at the University of Westminster. She is author of ‘The Secret World of the Brain’ and has appeared as an expert psychologist on BBC Radio 4’s ‘All in the Mind’.