Texas Science Festival - Musical Memories: Music and the Mind

Dr. Mei Rui (piano) is Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Neurosurgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Rui received BA and MA in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Artist Diploma in Music at Yale University and a DMA from Stony Brook University and currently serves as Director of MD Anderson's Music-in-Medicine Initiative and as Artist Collaborator at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. In addition to being an award-winning concert pianist, Dr. Rui studies the neurophysiological mechanisms and impact of defined music intervention in clinical cohorts. Her research uses evidence-based repertoire-selection methodologies to mitigate intra- and peri-operative stress, alleviate pain, reduce anxiety, diminish sedative and analgesic needs, and improve sleep in cancer patients. Her investigations also harness music—a powerful modulator of the human stress response—to mitigate burnout and enhance empathy in healthcare providers. Previously, she was appointed as the first Music Medicine faculty in the Department of Surgery at Houston Methodist and Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Rui founded the MUSICARE Initiative, which brought over 400 live bedside concerts performed by Yo-Yo Ma and eminent musicians from the Houston Symphony to ICU patients, their families and providers.

Mark Bernat (double bass) is Artistic Director of Musical Memories and the Red River Ensemble, the resident orchestra of College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. He has led an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. Trained at the Juilliard School, Mr. Bernat held positions with the Israel Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Symphony and was a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory and The University of Texas at Austin. His accomplishments as a soloist include first prize in the Juilliard Double Bass Competition and the Bloch Competition and recitals all over the world including at Carnegie Recital Hall and London’s Purcell Room. His transcriptions of major works for the double bass, published by International Music Company, have greatly expanded the solo repertoire for double bass. Mr. Bernat was the first double bassist to perform all six of the Bach Suites in a landmark recording and has recently re-released a new recording of the Suites to much acclaim. He has also been passionate about bringing classical music to new audiences. In 2009, he joined University of Iowa Healthcare to bring music into the hospital for patients and their families. There, he also formed an orchestra, concert band, and jazz band all consisting of faculty and staff. In 2021, he was recruited back to The University of Texas-Austin to establish similar programs that benefit the communities of the College of Natural Sciences and the Dell Seton Medical Center.

Dr. Bob Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is a University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas System Distinguished Teaching Professor, Elizabeth Shatto Massey Distinguished Fellow in Teacher Education, and Director of the Center for Music Learning. He is also a clinical professor in the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas and was the founding director of the psychology of learning program at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Dr. Duke’s research on human learning and behavior spans multiple disciplines, and his most recent work explores the refinement of procedural memories and the analysis of attention allocation in music practice and in teacher-learner interactions. A former studio musician and public school music teacher, he has worked closely with children at-risk, both in the public schools and through the juvenile justice system. He is the author of Scribe 5 behavior analysis software, and his most recent books are Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction, The Habits of Musicianship, which he co-authored with Jim Byo of Louisiana State University, and Brain Briefs, which he co-authored with Art Markman, his co-host on the public radio program and podcast Two Guys on Your Head, produced by KUT Radio in Austin.

Dr. Laura Colgin is Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Karl Folkers Chair in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, and Director of the Center for Learning and Memory at The University of Texas at Austin. Her lab uses multisite tetrode recordings from behaving animals to investigate how brain rhythms affect memory operations, particularly in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. The main goals of her work are to understand the functional significance of the different types of rhythms within the entorhinal-hippocampal network and to uncover their underlying mechanisms. Understanding the relationship between brain rhythms and behavior, and determining which circuits are involved, is expected to provide novel insights into diseases associated with aberrant rhythmic activity, such as schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease.