Hey everyone,
I recently stumbled across this amazing one-day festival from Gresham College (June 2025) called the Festival of Musical Ideas.
It’s a series of five highly entertaining and enjoyable lectures where the Gresham Professor of Music, Milton Mermikides, teams up with experts from biology, neuroscience, philosophy, maths, and astronomy to explore music in really fresh and mind-expanding ways.
It’s not your typical “how to compose” or gear talk—it’s about the bigger picture: why music evolved alongside language, how it lights up the brain and makes us move, ancient Greek ideas on music and virtue, the deep mathematical connections in music (and vice versa), and even sonyfying the cosmos (black holes and exoplanets turned into sound!).
Super inspiring if you’re into the “why” behind music as much as the “how”—definitely gave me some new angles on creativity and sound design.
Highly recommend if you’re looking for something thought-provoking over Christmas. Has anyone else seen these? What did you think?
Cheers!
Niclas
The lectures are presented in this chronological order based on the festival’s described progression (from evolutionary origins through historical philosophy, math, and to cosmic representations):
The Evolution of Music
(Professor Robin May with Milton Mermikides – on the biology and evolution of music)
Watch: The Evolution of Music | Gresham College
Climbing Mount Groove: Music and Dance in the Brain
(Professor Morten Kringelbach with Milton Mermikides – on music in the brain and neuroscience)
Watch: Climbing Mount Groove: Music and Dance in the Brain | Gresham College
The Virtues of Music
(Professor Melissa Lane with Milton Mermikides – on Ancient Greek philosophies of music)
Watch: The Virtues of Music | Gresham College
The Maths of Music (and the Music of Maths)
(Professor Sarah Hart with Milton Mermikides – on connections between music and mathematics)
Watch: The Maths of Music (and the Music of Maths) | Gresham College
Remixing the Music of the Spheres
(Professor Chris Lintott with Milton Mermikides – on music and astronomy/sonification)
Watch: Remixing the Music of the Spheres | Gresham College