Psychiatrist and concert pianist Richard Kogan is renowned for his lecture/concerts that explore the influence of psychological factors and psychiatric and medical illness on the creative output of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Gershwin, Bernstein, and Joplin. Sharing insight into some of the most creative minds, he opens his audiences’ eyes to the symphony that is humanity, music, and medicine.

This performance will explore how Polish composer Frédéric Chopin grappled with pulmonary disease and exile from his beloved Poland yet became one of the greatest composers of piano music in history, focusing on the power of resilience. Dr. Kogan’s insights about the practice and cultivation of resilience will offer urgent lessons to those who seek to foster and sustain the well-being and health of individuals and society.

Thursday, September 26, 2019 | 3:30 p.m.
Music and Medicine: Chopin and the Power of Resilience
Mayer Auditorium, USC
Admission is free. Reservations requested. RSVP here.
Reception to follow in the Hoyt Gallery.


Richard Kogan is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College, Harvard College, and Harvard Medical School. He currently serves as clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program.

A masterful storyteller and pianist, Dr. Kogan has captivated audiences at music festivals, concert series, medical conferences, and scholarly symposia throughout the world. The New York Times has praised him for his “eloquent, compelling, and exquisite playing” and The Boston Globe wrote that “Kogan has somehow managed to excel at the world’s two most demanding professions.”


Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Organized by Pamela Schaff (Medical Education and Family Medicine), Alexander Capron (Law and Medicine), Ron Ben-Ari (Internal Medicine), and Erika Wright (Medical Education and English). Co-sponsored by the Keck School of Medicine’s HEAL Program (Humanities, Ethics/Economics, Art, and the Law) and the Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics.