How Music Can Make You Better – Indre Viskontas

Evidence of music has been found in every culture, every civilization and every era of humanity. Amongst the oldest human-made artifacts are bone flutes, dating back 40,000 years. But many of us still think of music as a luxury – a form of entertainment – a ‘nice to have’ but not an essential part of our lives. In this talk, neuroscientist and opera singer/stage director Dr. Indre Viskontas will demonstrate that music exists only in our individual brains, but that it has the utility of a swiss-army knife: a tool that can be put to many different uses. As such, it has the capacity to make us better by optimizing our minds, healing our bodies, rewiring our brains and connecting us to one another. She will include “hot off the press” results from her study of the impact of the 2024 Lithuanian Song Festival on collective self-esteem, well-being, heart rate synchrony and social connection, conducted with an international team of researchers.