Boost Your IQ

It has been documented, in Nature no less, that listening to Mozart makes you smarter. Only for spatial reasoning, though. Only for 15mn afterwards. And the results got disputed later. Damn. And even worst, the same effect was observed with music from, hold on one second while we regain our composure, Yanni. Yanni!

In our quest to make you smarter without listening to Yanni, we suggest you consider the Mid-Summer Mozart Festival. It’s wall-to-wall Mozart, and it starts tonight in San Jose, tomorrow at the Herbst Theater, then an outdoors performance on Saturday in Sonoma and Berkeley on Sunday. The Silicon Valley-SF-Sonoma-Berkeley loop repeats next week with a different all-Mozart program.

This week, you’ll listen to a piano concerto with Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska, a bassoon concerto with Rufus Olivier soloing (he’s the principal bassoonist for the SF Opera and the SF Ballet, and you might have heard him with the Stanford Wood Quintet), a symphony and a divertimento for oboe, horns and strings. Then you’ll have 15mn to use your boosted spatial intelligence to get you home in a way you never thought of before. Don't think you'll have an edge in the cab line: everybody will be as juiced as you.

Picture of Yanni from yanni.com.