Music is math—it is a sophisticated compilation of harmonies, pitches, and rhythms built upon the physical laws of sound that render emotional impact. Music moves us powerfully. Can math do the same? Might you come out of your next math lecture with tears in your eyes?
In order to examine these questions more truthfully, a new way of viewing these disciplines is essential. Math isn't just an objective understanding of the universe, where answers are correct and incorrect, and music isn't simply a subjective expression of deep emotion. The two are inextricably linked. The language of music uses mathematics to communicate powerful emotional messages about the questions that matter most to us in life and in death.
Pianist Mia Chung delivered the annual Beimfohr-Neuss Lecture on April 26, 2018. Chung was the first-prize winner of the 1993 Concert Artists Guild Competition and a recipient of the 1997 Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony, National Symphony, Alabama Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Harrisburg Symphony, Boston Pops, and the Seoul Philharmonic, among others, under the direction of such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, John Nelson, Andrew Litton, and Richard Westerfield.
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