Festival of Musical Ideas: Gresham College holds inaugural festival fusing music with science and the humanities

Gresham College is hosting the inaugural Festival of Musical Ideas on Friday 20 June 2025 at the college in Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn. Gresham Professors will present a day of learning, exploration and music, fusing music with science and the humanities.

Milton Mermikides, Gresham College’s Professor of Music, commented: "By bringing together leading thinkers from across science, humanities, and the arts, the festival invites us to explore music not just as sound, but as a shared and profound way of understanding the world."

The day concludes with a lecture from Sky at Night presenter Professor Chris Lintott (the current Gresham Professor of Astronomy) which explores historic and contemporary musical representations of astronomical data while exploring astro-sonification in black hole radiation and exoplanetary systems.

During the day, Professor Robin May asks if music is an extension of evolution, and why music can evoke strong emotions; Professor Morten Kringelbach, neuroscientist and the founding director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, talks to Milton Mermikides about music in the brain; Professor Melissa Lane explores Ancient Greek philosophies on music; and Gresham College’s Acting Provost Professor Sarah Hart explores the connections between music and mathematics.

Founded in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham, Gresham College has been providing free, educational lectures to Londoners for over 400 years from a lineage of leading professors and experts in their field who have included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Roger Penrose. 

Entry to every lecture is free and they will be streamed online, people can attend as much or as little as they like. Full details from the college website.