Listen to your body

You feel fear. Your heart races, your stomach churns – you take flight. It seems obvious that the emotion caused the bodily sensations. But pioneering neuroscientists are finding just the opposite: that the body yields the emotion. This is the subtle sense of interoception and by enriching your understanding of interoception you can live a more emotionally attuned life. This evening, science and music come together to explore how your body speaks to you – and what you can gain by listening closely.

Sarah Garfinkel

Speaker

Sarah Garfinkel is a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, where she leads the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Group. She completed her PhD at the University of Sussex and a training fellowship in psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on brain-body interactions in different clinical conditions. In 2018, Sarah was named by the journal Nature as one of 11 Rising Star researchers. Sarah has co-authored more than 80 scientific peer reviewed articles and she is also involved in the public engagement of science through her contributions to science programs on BBC TV and radio.

Sebastian Rochford

Artist

Sebastian Rochford is a drummer, composer and producer. He has been nominated four times for the Mercury Prize, and has received multiple nominations for the MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act and the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. He was the recipient of the BBC Rising Star Jazz award. Sebastian has toured with Patti Smith since 2015 and is currently touring with Damon Albarn in support of his new solo album The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows (2021). He has played/recorded with a number of high-profile artists including Adele, Rokia Traoré, Paolo Nutini, Yoko Ono, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Aldous Harding, Fatoumata Diawara and Andy Sheppard, among others.

Sebastian has released six albums with his band Polar Bear, one with Pulled by Magnets, and has an upcoming album with fellow Sophia Club artist Kit Downes. He is a founding member of Sons of Kemet and played on the first three albums (producing the first two).

Kit Downes

Speaker

Kit Downes is a solo recording artist for ECM Records. He is a BBC Jazz Award winner and was nominated for a Mercury Prize. Kit has toured the world playing the piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands (ENEMY, Troyka and Elt) as well as with artists such as Squarepusher, Empirical, Benny Greb and Sam Amidon. He has written commissions for Cheltenham Music Festival, London Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble Klang at Rewire Festival, Scottish Ensemble, Kölner Philharmonie and the Wellcome Trust.

Kit performs solo pipe organ and solo piano concerts, and also plays in collaborations with the saxophonist Tom Challenger, the cellist Lucy Railton and the composer Shiva Feshareki, and with the band ENEMY. He is also currently working with the violinist Aidan O’Rourke and the composer Max de Wardener, and is in an organ trio with Reinier Baas and Jonas Burgwinkel. He teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he himself studied and now holds a fellowship.

Kit can be found on Twitter and Instagram.

Nigel Warburton

Host

Nigel Warburton has devoted much of his adult life to promoting public philosophy through his books, newspaper and magazine articles, radio programs, the highly successful Philosophy Bites podcast, and as a consultant senior editor at Aeon+Psyche. He is delighted to be hosting Sophia Club live events in London.