Le Havre, Talk and Presentation
September 26 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
translate from the French site:
Musical Conference – Mathematics in Music: A Conference in Harmonies
With Eugenia Cheng (School of the Art – Institute of Chicago)
Arthur Honegger Conservatory – 1 hour – ages 12 and up
Moderator: Olivier Saretta
Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Internationally renowned mathematician and accomplished pianist, Eugenia Cheng explores a rare and fascinating frontier: where mathematical structures meet music. Through a musical lecture blending explanations, demonstrations, and piano performances, she offers an experience where ideas take shape… in sound. Symmetries, patterns, logical relationships, and abstract structures become melodies and rhythms. What at first seems cold and conceptual suddenly reveals itself as vibrant, sensitive, almost emotional. How can an equation become a musical phrase? In what way can a mathematical proof resemble a composition? And why does the brain perceive such natural connections between musical beauty and logical elegance? In this unique encounter, Eugenia Cheng invites the audience to discover mathematics in a new light: not as a language reserved for specialists, but as a universal, intimate, and creative form of expression. A journey between rigor and harmony, where the piano becomes a tool for thought and where mathematics is as much to be heard as understood.