There’s nothing quite like a pop quiz at the start of a concert, but ten fun questions opened Every Brain Needs (Love) Music, which took place at the Patricia Reser Center for the Performing Arts on Valentine’s Day. That inquisitory and lively tone permeated Portland Chamber Orchestra’s unique concert-cum-lecture, featuring neuroscientist Larry Sherman.

The robust audience, which filled most of The Reser despite snowy weather, got lots of information about music, science, and love – all of which was peppered with live music – and audience members left the hall with their brain synapses firing.

Sherman, a professor of neuroscience at the Oregon Health and Science University, has given a number of presentations about the neuroscience of making and listening to music. He has even teamed up with Dennis Plies, retired music professor from Warner Pacific University, to write Every Brain Needs Music, which was published last year by Columbia University Press. Geared for the general public, the book dances nimbly between entertaining facts and scientific information, using easy-to-follow charts and illustrations.

To open the concert, Sherman displayed his considerable keyboard skills while a number of witty and thought-provoking quotes from the likes of Beethoven, Ray Charles, Chris de Burgh, Ed Gardiner, Tom Waits, Daniel Levitin, Bach, and Charles Darwin were displayed on a screen. It ended with a quote from Frank Zappa that Sherman really liked a lot: “A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.”

After the laughter subsided, Sherman launched into the neuroscience of how the brain processes sound, using clear and concise visuals to convey an overview of the details. (These are in Every Brain Needs Music, which your trusty critic purchased.) We learned that our brains are chock full of music-loving neurons, and studies involving function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown how our brains process what we hear.

That led Sherman to pose the question of why we make music. Of the many answers, one that often prevails is to spread information. During the time of the Underground Railroad, Wade in the Water — sung movingly at The Reser presentation by Marilyn Keller — had a special significance for enslaved people on their journey to freedom.

Touching on the subject of love, Sherman delivered a few facts about love songs. For example, the earliest known love song is The Love Song for Shu-Sin, a Mesopotamian number that dates back to 2000 BCE. 

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That led Sherman to discuss the three phases of love: 1) Lust – falling in love; 2) Romance – Infatuation; and 3) Commitment – all of which continues to be captured in love songs. Of course, there’s falling out of love, too. Keller, accompanied by pianist Naomi LaViolette, sang the wistful I Can’t Make You Love Me.

Next, Sherman asked where music comes from, and showed photos of the earliest flute ever found, which Neanderthals made from an animal bone. We were then serenaded by the haunting music of Hopi-Nez Perce flutist James Edmund Greeley, who drove from Warm Springs earlier in the day. He played the evocative “Two hearts as one” on two flutes at the same time.

We learned that music starts very early in our brains because our mothers sang to us. We heard LaViolette blend her composing and singing artistry with her gentle song Love on a Rainy Day. That was followed by Keller and LaViolette singing two versions of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – with Sherman at the keyboard. The first time they sang text to a humorous, jaunty tune; the second time to the melancholy and thoughtful tune that we all know.

Clarinetist Igor Shakhman, violinist Brandon Buckmaster, and cellist Jonah Thomas teamed up with LaViolette to perform Sunrise, a poignant piece that LaViolette wrote as a valentine to her mom. Shakhman talked about the love of practicing music, and with LaViolette performed Sidney Bechet’s La petit Fleur, a piece that he and his parents loved and often played when he was growing up in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Shakhman, Buckmaster, and Thomas followed with a spirited rendition of Hans Gál’s Burletta.

It turns out that making and listening to music is very, very good for a healthy brain. After two hours of science and music, Sherman and the entire ensemble decided to cut loose with Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke. That celebratory message about music had everyone clapping, dancing, and singing along – a perfect way to end the program.

Returning to the pop quiz that everyone took at the beginning of the concert, audience members who correctly answered 8 out of 10 questions on their scorecards received a special beer glass from Science on Tap. Gulp!

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