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Dreams, art and the brain
Speakers information
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Andrew Carnie
www.tram.ndo.co.uk/
Andrew Carnie was born in 1957. He studied chemistry and painting at Warren Wilson College, North Carolina, then zoology and psychology at Durham University, before starting and finishing a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London. Andrew then completed his Masters degree in the Painting School, at the Royal College of Art.
Since then Andrew has continued working primarily as a studio based artist, running other ventures alongside his practise, like the Carnie Chaple Gallery, the Tram Depot Gallery, and working as a consultant for Greater London Arts. Currently he is very involved in the Art and Mind Festival and other ventures in Winchester while continuing with his own practise, which is primarily in time based work, themed around various scientific topics, he also likes to work with a groups on art based projects, and is teaching regularly at the Winchester School of Art, which he has done since 1991.
His work is represented in collections in England, Germany, and America. Increasingly he talks about his collaborations with scientists and recently he was a key note speaker at the SLSA conference in Amsterdam, and completed a web radio show for PS 1 in New York.
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Rita Carter
Rita Carter is a patron of Art and Mind
www.ritacarter.co.uk/
Rita Carter is a distinguished science and medical writer and journalist, and the author of several books about the human brain, mind, memory and personality. They include "Mapping the Mind", which was short-listed for the Aventis Science Book Prize, "Consciousness" and, most recently 'Multiplicity: the new science of personality'".
Rita started her career as a newspaper reporter in London and subsequently worked for several years as a radio and TV presenter. She has contributed to a wide range of magazines and newspapers, including The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The New York Times and the New Scientist. She has won many awards for her writing, including, on two occasions, the Medical Journalist's Association prize for outstanding contribution to medical journalism.
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Paul Cheneour
www.composer.co.uk/composers/cheneour.html
Paul Cheneour: flautist/composer, trained at the Guildhall School of Music London under Professor Rainer Schuelein. For over 37 years since then has played, composed, taught, and run workshops and master-classes including CMSP prison work and Skyros, in England, Europe, Mexico, and Greece. He has 37 CD albums to his credit published by Northstar Music UK, 5 major films, including EMMA award winning '6th Happiness' and 'Hideous Kinky'. Best Foreign film winner in 2007 'In The Place of the Dead' 4 videos and 4 documentaries including BBC 2's Egyptian Journeys by Dan Cruickshank.
Paul Cheneour has worked with world class musicians, orchestras and groups, but his philosophy can best be expressed in his solo flute concerts which he describes as "meditations for solo flutes".
During a concert he can play a variety of flutes from Concert flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute, Piccolo, Chinese, Japanese and Indian Bamboo Flutes to Arab and Turkish Ney reed flutes, All the pieces are spontaneous intuitive music or 'Direct Deed' played in the moment, nothing is pre-planned.
He says, "How I arrived at a state of being and playing can be likened to going through a doorway, whether I've done it by accident or design is still open to question. The fact is that it happened and for me is the most fulfilling way of playing both solo or in collaboration. However, before you can combine the elements of composition and spontaneous performance it is essential to be completely still and empty. And after playing for over 30 years I delight more than ever in exploring and developing different sound qualities and textures".
Speaking of his solo flute albums, he says: "The pieces just kept coming out one after another and felt like I'm just a vehicle observing, almost like an 'out of body' experience. Every piece was the first take, no edits or anything added afterwards. When the recordings were finished, I felt like I hadn't really done anything; however, arriving home, I had to sleep for about two days."
Throughout his career Paul has walked a broader musical path, fusing eastern and western music, encompassing European Classical, Jazz, Arab, Indian, Celtic and other music, culminating in his own 'World Fusion' style. Above all, his music tells a story.
'Hear the sound within the silence and the silence within the sound' - Paul Cheneour
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Dr Iain R Edgar
www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/
Dr Iain Edgar is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Durham UK. His 1994 Ph.D (Keele University UK) was a participatory study of cultural and personal meaning making in dreamwork groups in the UK. He is the author of Guide to Imagework: Imagination-based Research Methods. London: Routledge 2004 and Dreamwork, Anthropology and the Caring Professions: A Cultural Approach to Dreaming. Aldershot: Avebury 1995. He has also co-edited four books and written thirty journal papers, mostly on the themes of dreaming, imagination, identity, politics and education. His most recent book, 'The Inspirational Night Dream in Islam: from the Qur’an to al-Qaeda and the Taliban: an anthropological enquiry' is being published by Berghahn Books: Oxford in 2010. he has also led many dreamwork and imagework groups in North America and Europe for personal growth, teaching and applied research purposes.
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Khaled Hakim
www.silkroads.co.uk
Khaled Hakim came to learn the Sufi daf (frame-drum) in traditional Sufi ceremonies. The focus was on spiritual practice, and in learning the rhythms there was a direct form of ‘zikr’ (literally 'remembrance of God') with energizing, meditative and cleansing qualities.
By ‘accident’ he ended up a musician, playing in classical Sufi groups such as ‘Taraweeh’ as well as more experimental ‘fusion’ ensembles where his flair for jazz-inflected Middle-Eastern percussion and yearning for a contemporary spirituality could meet.
As well as playing and teaching, he is director of Silk Roads, a non-profit organization of artist-educators inspired by arts from the legendary silk routes. In keeping with Silk Roads’ ethos of artistic ferment, Khaled and Paul Chenour are collaborating on a new music project in 2009.
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Garry Kennard
www.garrykennard.com
Garry Kennard is the founder and director of Art and Mind and has directed 8 major festivals and events since establishing it in 2003.
He is also is a painter and writer. He exhibited his paintings and woodcuts in several London galleries during the seventies and appeared in the BBC series The Craftsmen'.
For the ten years he lived in France where he ran his own gallery. The gallery - Atelier La Serre - was used for exhibitions, lectures and concerts.
Now resident in the UK Garry Kennard has recently exhibited his paintings and drawings in London, Oxford, Cambridge and Winchester.
A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has led him to research, write and lecture on these topics. He has recently lectured at the Conway Hall, London, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, the Arts Institute of Bournemouth, the BA Science conference at Exeter University, The Louise T. Blouin Institute in London and twice for the Brtish Humanist Society.
His essay 'The Uses of Paradox' was published by the University of Florida's 'Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts'.
In 2006 his essay 'Art and Mind' was published in the Nepal Journal of Neuroscience and can be found at http://www.neuroscienceforum.org.np/
Garry Kennard has an interest in mountaineering and has climbed in the Alps, Africa and has lead his own expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas.
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Dr John Smalley
John Smalley is an artist, lecturer, novelist and Jungian Analyst. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1976. He lectured in Fine Art at Farnham and Bradford, and exhibited nationally and internationally. His artwork is in museums and private collections in Europe and the USA. In 1990 he attended the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich to train to be a Jungian Analyst, and graduated in 1994. He is a member of IGAP, IAAP and the UKCP, and is a training analyst for IGAP and the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich. He has lectured extensively on approaches to dream interpretation and is currently writing a book – ‘The Appreciation of Dreams’. Previous publications include ‘Fragments of Mythology’, ‘The Serpent’s Bride’ (both fiction) and ‘The Almond and the Sea Horse’ – an account of the dreams of a sufferer of epilepsy.
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Sir John Tavener
www.musicmindspirit.org
At the debut concert of the London Sinfonietta in 1968, John Tavener's dramatic cantata The Whale took its audience by storm and led to Tavener's music being recorded on The Beatles' Apple label. Since that time Tavener has continued to show an originality of concept and an intensely personal idiom making his a voice quite distinct from those of his contemporaries.
His growing interest in the Russian Orthodox Church, which he joined in 1977, marked a significant change in his style of composition. Increasingly, his influences looked back to ancient Tradition as he worked towards the creation of an icon in sound. Major works of the 1980s and early 1990s include the Orthodox Vigil Service and the Akathist of Thanksgiving, which was given a standing ovation in Westminster Abbey at its premiere in 1988. The Virgin Classics recording of The Protecting Veil for solo cello and strings with Steven Isserlis was awarded a Gramophone Award in 1992. Large-scale choral and orchestral works include Resurrection and an opera for the 1992 Aldeburgh Festival, Mary of Egypt which was recorded by Collins Classics.
The enormous popularity of Tavener's music is reflected by the number of arts festivals which have featured his music including Perth, Athens, West Cork, Toronto, St. Nazaire and the BBC's Tavener Festival which celebrated the composer's 50th birthday. Recent commissions include Svyati (1995) for Steven Isserlis, the recording of which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize in 1997; The Hidden Face (1996) for the City of London Sinfonia; The Last Discourse (1997) premiered at St. Paul's Cathedral in March 1998; Eternity's Sunrise (1997), commissioned by the Academy of Ancient Music and premiered at the City of London Festival in 1998; and the epic Fall and Resurrection, premiered at St. Paul's Cathedral in January 2000; his book "The Music of Silence - A Composer's Testament" is published by Faber & Faber. In October 2000, London's South Bank Centre presented "Ikons of Light," a major three-week festival dedicated to his music.
Combined with his reflective spirit, John Tavener has an engaging humour which is never far from the surface. This is captured in both "Glimpses of Paradise" (1992), a documentary by director Geoffrey Haydon and "The South Bank Show," broadcast on ITV on Easter Day 1998 and subsequently released on video.
There are many CD recordings of John Tavener's music available on record labels including Sony, Virgin Classics, EMI, BMG, Collins Classics, Hyperion, Linn Records, Nimbus and Chandos. In April 1999 Harmonia Mundi released "Eternity's Sunrise," a disc which features five world premiere recordings of Tavener works performed by the Academy of Ancient Music.
Tavener received a Knighthood in the 2000 New Year's Honours list for "Services to Music."
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Mrs. Mary Twyman
Mrs. Mary Twyman is a psychoanalyst in private practice in London. She was Principal Social Worker for thirteen years in the Adult Department at the Tavistock Clinic. She has also been an Honorary Lecturer at UCL on the MSc. Course in Psychoanalytic Theory. In recent years, she has chaired the Ethics Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council and has been the lead in drafting its Code of Ethics, Guidelines and Complaints Procedures for the profession. She has contributed chapters to several books, broadly in the area of Independent theory and practice. She has also co-edited (with Hester Solomon) “The Ethical Attitude in Analytic Practice” (Free Association Books, 2003).
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Jeff Warren is a writer and science journalist interested in the shifting texture of internal awareness in humans and animals. His approach is poppy and multidisciplinary, drawing on imaginative and literary sources as well as first-person experience and neurobiology. He is the author of Head Trip, a delirious neuro-romp through the sleeping, dreaming and waking mind. Warren is also a freelance radio producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a graduate of McGill University with a degree in literature, a resident of Toronto’s Kensington Market, and an undisciplined reader of the mystic, the cryptic and the scientific.
He is currently working on a book about animal consciousness and the evolution of experience, and is putting the finishing touches on a user’s manual for an absolutely bonkers mechanical device called the “Dream Director” that promises to remix dreaming cognition. For more information, check out Jeff's website at www.headtrip.ca
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The Medici Quartet
Drawing on more than 35 years of world class musical performance The Medici Ensamble is a leading international group, having appeared to critical acclaim in more than thirty countries across five continents.
As well as regular radio broadcasts, they have a wide ranging and eclectic discography of more than 40 records which includes a highly regarded Beethoven Quartets Cycle, the seldom heard Saint-Saëns Quartets and Wajahat Khan's Sarod Quintet Raag Desh.
In 1996 Channel 4 Television broadcast a three-part series entitled Music & the Mind, performed by The Medici Quartet and presented by their leader Paul Robertson; these programmes combined music and science to explore the power of music in human life, cognitive and emotional development and health.
Renowned for their dramatic programmes for string quartet and actors which revealed the intimate relationship between the composer's work and his life & times through the imaginative conjunction of music and readings were nitiated by Paul Robertson, ‘The Kingdom of the Spirit’: Beethoven through his Letters by John Caird and Michael Kennedy's programme about Sir Edward and Lady Elgar at Brinkwells entitled ‘Wood Magic’ have been performed many hundreds of times. Alan Bennet with composer George Fenton also created and recorded a memorable performance piece ‘Hymn’ with them for their 30th anniversary.
Although the Medici Quartet gave its final performance at the Harrogate International Festival in 2007 the same core members have since reformed, as the Medici Ensemble, in order to explore a wider repertoire and share its unique history with young professionals and Executive Leaders.
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Zoe Schwarz & Rob Koral Jazz & Blues Quartet
Having made a considerable impact these past five years in a crowded market place, vocalist Zoë Schwarz makes her first appearance at the Carlton Theatre Jazz Club. The quartet will include the individual and stylish guitar of Rob Koral, supported by Quinny Lawrence-drums and Mike Thorn-double bass. Expect some excursions into the blues field with re-workings of Willie Dixon, Nina Simone and Howling Wolf together with some individual self-penned material and a good helping of classic standards.
Zoe Schwarz
www.zoeschwarz.info
Zoe Schwarz was classically trained and a graduate in the ‘Performing Arts’ from Trent Park, Middlesex University. Despite Zoë’s classical upbringing and studies it soon became clear that her forte was far more suited to blues, expressive ballads and jazz. It was only three years after her first jazz gig that Zoë had her first week at Ronnie Scott’s sharing a week with Monty Alexander. She has also enjoyed success at Pizza on the Park, Stables-Wavendon, Vortex, 606 and many theatres and venues in the UK. 2008 also included a full programme of festivals the length and breadth of the country; from Swanage to Swaledale, Carswell to Litchfield, from Wales to London, to supporting Pat Metheny at the Lighthouse.
Rob Koral
http://robkoral.co.uk
Rob Koral comes from a ‘self-taught’, more bluesy background; but has made his name on the British jazz scene, performing with the likes of Jim Nullen, Django Bates and Bill Bruford. Rob moved to London early in his career and formed the successful band SKETCH with singer Sue Hawker. Sketch released several well-received albums, and appeared on the Old Grey Whistle test and BBC’s Jazz notes. Rob has played at all the major London venues, including Ronnie Scott’s, The Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall; as well as Jazz festivals and clubs all over the U.K, including Brecon, Glasgow and Swanage. With a track from his recent solo album ‘Grace Notes’ played on Radio 3’s Jazz Line Up in May ‘08.
Zoë and Rob’s musical partnership has been described as “one of the most engagingly natural partnerships in jazz,
Zoë’s unaffected vocal style particularly well suited to the blues, and Rob's flawless guitar skills; their gigs are immediately accessible, enjoyable affairs.” – Chris Parker 2007. Coming from different musical beginnings seems to work to their advantage, creating a distinct chemistry combining musical sensitivity and sensibility. This has manifested itself in their careful choice of standard tunes and their ability to write strong and concise original compositions. “The real meat of this recording is to be found in the nine originals. The two Billie Holiday-inspired tunes ‘Let’s Explain’ and ‘Give Him Up Girl’ both pack powerful emotional punches (who says no one’s writing good lyrics these days) ……” by Peter Quinn Jazzwise ‘Devil or Dove’ April 2005
As well as their jazz hats, Rob and Zoë also front the new and popular six-piece blues band called The Baddest Blues Band (Ever!) “One of the finest guitar-led blues and roots bands in the world” Time Out Magazine 2008
STEP UP - “A glorious album” – Radio 2, Humphrey Lyttelton, 10th March ‘08
"The bluesy vocals of Zoë Schwarz have won a significant following. Her combination with the guitarist Rob Koral helps place her apart from other vocalists.” - The Independent on Sunday, Roger Trapp, 18th Aug ‘07
"Rob Koral is superb his is a talent of world class proportions."- Jazz Journal Itl, Bruce Crowther
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