The Mind and Music of Beethoven

Psychiatrist and concert pianist Dr. Richard Kogan is renowned for his lectures/concerts that explore the influence of psychological factors and psychiatric and medical illness on the creative output of the great composers. A master storyteller, he has captivated audiences with these programs at music festivals, concert series, medical conferences and scholarly symposia throughout the world. Dr. Kogan is clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program. The New York Times has praised him for his “eloquent, compelling, and exquisite playing” as a pianist. About his distinguished career as both a concert pianist and a psychiatrist, the Boston Globe wrote, “Kogan has somehow managed to excel at the world’s two most demanding professions.”

Dr. Kogan is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College, Harvard College, and Harvard Medical School. He has won numerous honors and awards in both music and psychiatry.

Christopher French is the associate principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. Before joining the orchestra in 1986, he held titled positions in both the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Symphony. French is the seventh of a full octave of musical siblings. He enjoys performing with the Bad Boys of Cello, the alter ego of the Houston Symphony cello section. The Bad Boys have played in homeless shelters and elementary schools in an effort to eliminate the classist misconceptions about classical music.

French is a graduate of North Park University in Chicago, where he won the Performance Award. In addition to three concerto performances with the Houston Symphony, he has appeared on the Chamber Players series, and with Da Camera of Houston and the Greenbriar Consortium. He participates in the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, Music in the Mountains in Durango, Colorado, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

French teaches orchestral repertoire at Rice University.

Winner of Third Prize at the 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Boson was named as one of Canada’s “30 under 30 Top Classical Musicians of 2015” by CBC Radio-Canada. He is a recipient of the “Prix Joseph-Rouleau” at the 2010 Montreal International Violin Competition as well as a top 25 candidate at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and is a winner of Canada’s prestigious Sylva Geber Foundation Award. Additionally, he is a two-time winner of Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank loan. Mo served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2017 and is now a member of the Houston Symphony. He will forever be a student of mentors Keqiang Li and Paul Kantor, and he currently performs on a violin by MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Joseph Curtin.