The Ensemble Project explores the relationship between music and empathy: how musical performance can connect people and help them overcome differences and conflicts.
Musicians who make music as a group strive to play ‘in sync,’ to connect with each other so that they can connect with the audience. Some people call this ‘groove’ and argue that it’s one of the most important features of effective music. Without groove, a performance feels static and leaves the audience emotionally flat.
What is The Ensemble Project?
Dr. Indre Viskontas, PhD
Led by neuroscientist and opera singer Dr. Indre Viskontas, the multi-faceted project is designed to understand how music builds communities, creates hope, alleviates suffering and provides meaning in times of trouble. Combining science to extract general principles and art to explore the subjective experience, the goal of this project is to illuminate what is universal in our relationship with music, particularly when it leads to a greater sense of connection with others. This project is generously sponsored by the Germanacos Foundation through a grant to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
“With this project, we are investigating how synchronizing brain and body rhythms either directly or indirectly generates more evocative and moving music from an ensemble of musicians playing together.”