Visiting Professor Paul Robertson

Contact Paul Robertson: cal.lpf@cbs.dk

For thirty four years Professor Paul Robertson performed throughout the world as leader of the internationally renowned Medici String Quartet of which he was a founder member. They recorded and broadcast prolifically and appeared at International Festivals across four continents.

Their eminent Discography includes more than 50 recordings, including a highly praised complete Beethoven Quartet cycle for Nimbus records.

As a young quartet the Medici established an unrivalled reputation in contemporary music, premiering a host of new works. Many leading composers, including Elizabeth Lutyens, John Taverner, Richard Rodney Bennet, Maxwell-Davis etc., dedicated significant compositions to them.

Early on they were taken under the wing of the legendary pianist Sir Clifford Curzon, with whom they performed much of the piano quintet repertoire. It was the extraordinary experience of learning Elgar’s Piano Quintet with Curzon that first sparked Paul’s interest in exploring different ways to share with audiences the process of interpretation as well as the performance.

The work with Curzon inspired Paul to initiate a music theatre series with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Over a ten-year period, various composer’s works were psychologically illuminated by dramatic realizations of their lives and times.

Directed by John Caird (Director of ‘Les Miserables’ and a host of other eminent productions), creative collaborations were established with the principal classical actors of their generation such as John Thor, Sheila Hancock, Derek Jacobi, Tim West, Prunella Scales, Dorothy Tutin, Eleanor Bron and many others.

Paul’s continuing interest in exploring the implicit meanings of music has taken many forms over the years.

For more than twenty years he has worked alongside leading scientists to explore the neurological and scientific basis of music. This work reached a wide public with his highly acclaimed Channel 4 television series ‘Music and the Mind’.

Along with his busy concert schedule, he is in constant international demand as a speaker and lecturer at medical, scientific and educational conferences as well as business colloquia. He is a Cultural Leader in the World Economic Forum, and is in regular conversation with business, media and political leaders.

He also became increasingly intrigued by the applications of music to Education and Health. A series of international medical and hospital presentations, including extended series at the ‘Hopital Cantonal’-Geneva and the prestigious Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, U.K. has lead to a regular International schedule of Talks and Presentations at leading medical institutions and conferences.

In 2001 Paul was awarded a fellowship by the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts [NESTA] to explore the musical, mathematical and spiritual foundations of Bach's work for unaccompanied violin, ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Earth’. He has recently returned from presenting a programme of talks and lectures as Singapore's first 'Artist in Residence' to inspire their ‘Connected Creative, Singapore’ initiative.

In order to better understand non-notational and improvisational techniques, he initiated immensely successful musical collaborations with Classical Indian master, Wajahat Khan, in his ‘Sarod Quintet’ (Koch records) and with the famous jazz saxophonist Barbara Thompson, ‘From Berlin to Broadway’ (Virgin records).

He also created a cross-over disc with legendary record producer George Martin in his superlative Air Studio. This included performances with guitarist, John Williams, Johnny Dankworth and Jack Brymer amongst others.

His collaboration with Ashridge Management College consultant, Hugh Pidgeon, created a unique programme entitled ‘The Gift’, in which the members of the Quartet explored conflict resolution within performance.

His ongoing project, ‘The Pursuit of Perfection’ with Ashridge consultants Hugh Pidgeon and Claudia Heimer, is proving very attractive to the corporate world, a developing area of work Paul considers of particular significance for our contemporary culture.

Other current projects include ‘Swansongs’, a research collaboration with Dr John Zeisel on the relationship between musical structure and the neurophysiology of Alzheimer's syndrome, and the development of The Young Musicians’ World Peace Orchestra (comprising young musicians from conflict-torn zones). The Orchestra performed to great acclaim at the World Economic Forum's summit in Salzburg in September 2002.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Visiting Professor to the Universities of both Kingston and Bournemouth, acts as an advisor to a number of research groups in universities worldwide, and has recently become Advisor to the Music and Health section of the Masters in Design for Health at the University of Florence.

Professor Robertson writes:
‘Music is a universal experience and for centuries human beings have engaged with it whilst wondering at its power. We can now begin to appreciate how musical forms and structures precisely mirror the underlying neurological forms and physiological structures that create them. There is a new and burgeoning interest in establishing a biological basis for musical experience. Whilst such pure scientific exploration is facilitated by non-intrusive brain mapping, it is driven by a far more powerful urge to understand the mysteries of music.

By the mapping the structures of the Musical brain we are revealing the maps of both Personal Identity and the Implicit Laws of Social Relationship.’