Wednesday, February 15
5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. (Q&A and reception to follow)
Campus Spine (in front of the University Library)
The Office of the Arts, in collaboration with the Writing Club, is delighted to present a lecture by Professor David Keyes.
Though specialization separates them today, science and art spring from the same creative root. Pythagoras, the earliest identifiable mathematician, is also the earliest music theorist. DaVinci worked out perspective as much to portray his numerous inventions as to paint the Mona Lisa. The father of modern science, Galileo, left us poems as well as new moons. Khayyam, Euler, Lomonosov, Goethe, Davy, Herschel, and Morse are among those revered at least as much for their art as for their science in their day.
Verse is presented as a crossroads of analytical and free-associative thought. Verse often begins with a “right-brain” flash but is not delivered without a (usually much longer) passage through a “left-brain” analytical process similar to constrained optimization, in which one attempts to find the best “solution” subject to certain bounds. We claim that this interplay between the two hemispheres is not unique to the arts, but that science, too, is a dual-hemisphere activity, and that this helps explain the proclivities of scientists to artistic endeavors, and vice versa.
About the Speaker
Child of a librarian mother and inheritor of his grandmother’s piano, David Keyes immersed himself in literature and music as a youth. He studied piano, music theory and composition while participating in orchestra, chorus and musical theatre, and wrote short stories, poetry and features for scholastic presses. However, his artistic activities slowed during engineering studies at college, and halted during development of career and family.
In 2005, New York composer Mavis Pan encouraged David, then a professor at Columbia, to return to songwriting and commissioned some lyrics from him. Except for 2008 and 2009 (during the founding of KAUST!) their collaboration has produced several songs per year. Their songs have been featured in programs in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Besides two albums of jazz originals, they have written many art songs and choral works, and they work (very occasionally!) on a pair of Broadway-style musicals.
About The Writing Club
The Writing Club is a community club in KAUST with the aim of bringing aspiring young writers together to think of ideas and write and help each other grow.
Not a writer but an avid reader or an artist? You are heartily welcome to join the club. We are delighted to announce that submission is open for our literary magazine, titled The Pen القلم .
About the Office of the Arts
Under the umbrella of The Office of the Provost, the Office of the Arts consists of a visual and performing arts team with a mission to promote art, science and culture in KAUST, the Kingdom, and in the wider global context.
For further information, contact officeofthearts@kaust.edu.sa and follow @KAUST_Arts on social media.
2 comments
I love kaust for this kind of events
Hello Luna,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this kind message.
As cultural producers, such feedbacks are the reasons and rewards of our tireless advocacy in favour of ambitious and transdisciplinary programming.
Looking forward to hosting you this coming Wednesday, and at future Office of the Arts’ events. Spread the word and follow @kaust_arts to stay in the loop!