Wednesday (10/17) on the Southern California Public Radio 89.3 KPCC website, Rob Strauss reports, “A five-year study involving USC and the LA Philharmonic will examine what effect intense, musical training has on a child’s brain. Researchers with the USC Brain and Creativity Institute will begin working with children between the ages of 6 and 7, when they have no musical training, up to the ages of 11 and 12. Their results will then be compared against children with no music training at all. Dr. Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute, said people across the world are passionate about music. But researchers want to know exactly what it does to the brain. … The young music students in the study are part of the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles at the Heart of Los Angeles (YOLA at HOLA) program, a collaboration between the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the nonprofit organization Heart of Los Angeles. The children in the program are from underprivileged neighborhoods in Los Angeles and are provided free instruments and music training five days a week. The program also uses ‘El Sistema,’ a method of intense, free music training that was born in Venezuela and is associated with L.A. Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel.”
Posted October 17, 2012
