LFP #51: The Beautiful Dance Between Our Heart and Live Performance with Professor and Concert Pianist Elaine Chew

Live music has a tremendous and profound impact on our hearts and human physiology. The connection between what we feel physically and what we feel emotionally in our heart is one of the most powerful experiences we have at a concert. So what actually happens to our physical hearts during a show? Can live music actually heal our heart? Can we visualize the actual physical impact of live music on our hearts? 

In this episode we explore all these questions as we dive into the fascinating and inspiring work of Elaine Chew. Elaine is Professor of Engineering at King's College London in the Department of Engineering and the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences. She is also a concert pianist and currently leads two European Research Council projects COSMOS, CosmoNote, and HeartFM. In her work she is investigating the effects of performed music on both musicians' and listeners' physiology. As much as possible, she aims to use live music in her studies as this has been shown to have a more powerful effect. 

Together we explore:  

• How she began playing as an concert pianist
• How our physical hearts are impacted by live music 
• The life changing emotional advice her piano teacher gave her right before her first performance 
• Her work in researching the healing power and influence of live music on cardiovascular issues
• Her favorite shows and performers 
• Among other topics, we have some fun exploring, what would happen if you transplanted and swapped the hearts of two different concert fans